Social life in the insect world / by J. H. Fabre.

  • Jean-Henri Fabre
Date:
1912
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Social life in the insect world / by J. H. Fabre. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    forth indelible. Entrusted as it is to the memory of childhood, error will prevail against the truth that lies before our eyes. Let us seek to rehabilitate the songstress so calum- niated by the fable. She is, I grant you, an importunate neighbour. Every summer she takes up her station in hundreds before my door, attracted thither by the verdure of two great plane-trees ; and there, from sunrise to sunset, she hammers on my brain with her strident symphony. With this deafening concert thought is impossible ; the mind is in a whirl, is seized with vertigo, unable to concentrate itself. If I hâve not profited by the early morning hours the day is lost. Ah 1 Créature possessed, the plague of my dwelling, which I hoped would be so peaceful 1—the Athenians, they say, used to hang you up in a little cage, the better to enjoy your song. One were well enough, during the drowsiness of digestion ; but hundreds, roaring ail at once, assaulting the hearing until thought recoils—this indeed is torture ! You put forward, as excuse, your rights as the first occupant. Before my arrivai the two plane-trees were yours without reserve ; it is I who hâve intruded, hâve thrust myself into their shade. I confess it : yet muffle your cymbals, moderate your arpeggi, for the sake of your historian 1 The truth rejects what the fabulist tells us as an absurd invention. That there are sometimes dealings between the Cigale and the Ant is perfectly correct ; but these dealings are the reverse of those described in the fable. They dépend not upon the initiative of the former; for the Cigale never required the help of others in order to make her living : on the contrary, they are due to the Ant, the greedy
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