nd engaged. But so far we have seen only one of the faces of the little mind of the animal; let us now consider the other aspect, the moral side, the region

he caterpillar which it has just stabbed with its sting, and which lies writhing on the ground," the Ammop

he Mason-bees; with them right comes before might, an

what we term devotion, attachment, affectionate feel

ists in living, mere ruin that she is, in order to open the door to her family with one last bite. Feeling under the silken roof her offspring stamping with impatience, but knowing that they

ts her nursery by means of her body, anchors herself upon the th

ight and maternal tenderness have, as a rule, no other motive than pleasure and the

fact of maternity is reduce

gs on the leaves of the cabbage, "on which the

is negligently lets her eggs fall to the ground, one by one, here o

e implanted in the earth like

e sac, which is swollen with eggs. For several long weeks she exposes it to the sun during half the day. Gently she turns it about in order to present every side to the vivifying light. The bird, in order to hatch her eggs, covers them with the down of her breast,

hough it were her sac of eggs, a piece of cork, a pincushion, or a ball of paper," just as the hen, another victim of this sublime de

ognizing them or of distinguishing them from the young of others. The Copris and the Scorpion are no less blind, "and their maternal tenderness barely exc

hen the Cerceris has sealed the crypt to which she has confided the future of her race, neither one nor the other can fores

ll, life can only be

is consummated by the astonishing history of the Minotaur, wh

mes to her assistance, and "stores up treasure for the future. Never discouraged by the heavy labour of climbing, leaving to the mother only the more moderate labour, keeping the severest for himself, the heavy task of transport in a narrow tunnel, very deep and almost vertical, he goes foraging, forgetful of himself, heedless of the intoxicating delights of spring, though it would be so good to see somethin

nly returns to the surface when accompanied by her young, who disperse at will.

wandering, or even with the meritorious Sisyphus, does it no

mprehended his duties and obligations toward his family? What morality

he dung-beetle as in that of man? If we examine it

we explain the rarity of so sublime an example, did we not know, to satiety, that "nature everywhere is but an enigmatic poem, as who

unbridled desires." No one better than Fabre has expounded the blind operation of these little natural forces, the brutality of their man

me race halts or lingers; none attempts to come to his aid. S

e are pitilessly torn from their place and dragged out of the

e are massacred, and the whole vesp

the insect also has its morality and the wasp's nest its "law," and the conduct of its inmates, horrible though it may seem to Fabre, is d

f the insect in nature is to preside over the disappearance and

rovidential hy

der to establish their progeny in them; in the space of a few hours an enormous body

iding all filth into tiny crumbs, ri

scriptible mission of purging the earth of t

re explains

which transforms vegetable matter into mould; in a month it will digest a vol

in its manifold circuits. The sheep has finely divided the vegetable matter; the grub, that incomparable triturator,

y thousand eggs in the flanks of the house fly; immediately they are hatched these twenty thousand maggots se

dar beetle, produces ten thousand eggs, whence issu

s as well as our most precious helpers, have their utility and their part to play in the general scheme of life, a raison d'êtr

nother the roots, to a third the leaves; the vine has its caterpillars

e often more tenacious of life than the adults. Fabre has proved this: let the temperature suddenly fall twenty degrees: the eggs of Geotrupes and the larvae of the cockchafer or the rose-beetle endure such vicissitudes of temperature with impunity; contracted and stiffened into

none knows how or why; deliverance is at hand. What indeed wo

ate its surplusage, and Fabre expounds for us, with a stern phil

"the king of the dead," has its parasites. While it swims in the deliquescence of putrefying flesh a minute Chalcidian perforates its skin with an

s, that we can found any hope of seeing this or that pest disappear. A small Hymenopteron, almost invisible, the Microgaster glomeratus, is entrusted with the destruction of the cabbage caterpillar; the cochineal wages war to the death upon the green-fly; the Ammophila is the predestined murderer of the harvest Noctuela, whose

stablish their family at the expense of others. The enemy penetrates the most inaccessible fortress; each has its tactics of war, devised with a terrible art. Of the nest and the cocoon of the victim

f this pigmy, following closely after the colossus, step by step; several at once almost under the talons of the giant, which

rnal movement of flux and reflux, the same whirlpool of life, which is extinguished only to reappear: tending always towards an equilibrium which