Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1915-12-24
CANNIBAL INSECTS.
Henri Fabre's Studies of the Simple
Way Bugville HanGles It's Problems


When much that is happening in Eu-
rope now is forgotten, our children S
children and their children in turn will
be revelling in the fascinating stories
of insect life told by Henri Fabre. the
famous savant, who has lately died at
the age of ninety-two. Fabre was a man
who devoted his entire life to the study
of insects. He spent days, weeks,
months, and years in infinitely observ-
ing their habits, and the results of his
observations have been embodied in
works which are now the world s text
books on the subject.
Fabre knew everything about insects.
From his book on "Social Life in the
Insect World we learn, for instance,
how the Mantis, species of grasshop-
per, lives exclusively on living prey.
1t is the tiger Of the peaceful insect
peoples, and has a habit of appearing
in an attitude of prayer when it is real,
ly seeking whom it may devour. Let a
victim come within reach and the at
titude of prayer is promptly abandoned.
"Suddenly unfolded,' to quote
Fabre, "the three long joints of the
deadly fore limbs shoot out their ter
minal talons, which strike the victim
and drag it backwards between the
two saw-blades of the thighs The vice
closes with movement like that of
the forearm upon the upper arm, and
all is over. Crickets, grasshoppers. and
even more powerful insects, once seized
in this trap with its four rows of teeth.
are lost irreparably.'
Sisters eat sisters, brothers eat
brothers, and strenuous female mantis
eat their lovers and husbands. Fabre
relates how in the course of two weeks
he has seen the same female mantis
devour seven husbands-not a case of
jealousy, but simply through depraved
taste.
The female species of the golden
sarabeus, a beetle often seen in the
country, are equally murderous towards
males. Fabre relates in the book al
ready mentioned that the female scara-
beus between the middle Of June and
The first of August devours quite a
number of males, and that of twenty
five of these beetles placed in cage,
only five remained, all of whom were
females, all the males, to the number
of twenty, having disappeared.
Perhaps the most popular of Fabre s
works are those dealing with the life
of the bee and wasp Darwin was great
ly interested in his account of the in
stincts which led wasps to paralyze
their prey-beetles and caterpillars--
on which their young feed-by singing
them at the precise point where the
nervous system is most concentrated,
instead of killing them, thus keeping a
sort of live storehouse to provide their
young with food that remains fresh,
though incapable of any harmful move
ment.
Fabre used to relate how he was led
to certain studies of the bee by no.
ticing the mysterious conduct of his pu-
pills during an outdoor lesson. He
caught numbers of them licking a bit
of straw The mystery was then ex-
planned. The pupils, local lads, knew
that the great black bee made its earth
en- nest on the pebbles, and that in
these nests there was honey which
could be easily extracted by the aid of
straw. That was Fabre's first ac-
quaintance with the Mason Bee, about
which he afterwards wrote so charm
ingly.
Fabre informs us that the Mason bee
lays her eggs in nests composed Of diff
ferent sized compartments. In the large
cells she puts females and in the small
she puts males. Hence, according to
Fabre, we must needs admit that the
mother knows the sex of the egg she
is going to lay, because that egg is
placed in a cell of the proper capacity.
We can go farther, and admit that
the mother alters the succession of the
sexes at her pleasure, because her lay
ings between an old nest and another
are broken up into small groups of
males and females, according to the ex-
igencies of space in the actual nest
which she happens to be occupying
| It'd Bits