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Hunting Wasps
Renowned for only the last five years of his generally impoverished life (1823-1915), J. Henri Fabre is nonetheless recognized as one of the most respected and beloved entomologists in the world. He devoted his life to the study of insects and carefully (and beautifully) described his findings in book after book. Fabre was eighty-four when the last of the ten volumes of his magnum opus appeared—Souvenirs Entomologiques. He was suddenly discovered by such eminent literary figures as Maurice Maeterlinck, Edmund Rostand and Roman Rolland. Scientific societies in London, Brussels, Stockholm, Geneva and St. Petersburg elected him to membership. The French government gave him an annual pension. All students of insect behavior, of comparative psychology, of experimental biology are indebted to him.
250 pages, Paperback
First published September 9, 2010
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About the author
Jean-Henri Fabre
707 books56 followersFabre was born in Saint-Léons in Aveyron, France. Fabre was largely an autodidact, owing to the poverty of his family. Nevertheless, he acquired a primary teaching certificate at the young age of 19 and began teaching at the college of Ajaccio, Corsica, called Carpentras. In 1852, he taught at the lycée in Avignon.
Fabre went on to accomplish many scholarly achievements. He was a popular teacher, physicist, chemist and botanist. However, he is probably best known for his findings in the field of entomology, the study of insects, and is considered by many to be the father of modern entomology. Much of his enduring popularity is due to his marvelous teaching ability and his manner of writing about the lives of insects in biographical form, which he preferred to a clinically detached, journalistic mode of recording. In doing so he combined what he called "my passion for scientific truth" with keen observations and an engaging, colloquial style of writing. Fabre noted: Others again have reproached me with my style, which has not the solemnity, nay, better, the dryness of the schools. They fear lest a page that is read without fatigue should not always be the expression of the truth. Were I to take their word for it, we are profound only on condition of being obscure.
Over the years he wrote a series of texts on insects and arachnids that are collectively known as the Souvenirs Entomologiques. Fabre's influence is felt in the later works of fellow naturalist Charles Darwin, who called Fabre "an inimitable observer". Fabre, however, rejected Darwin's theory of evolution; on the other hand he was not a Biblical creationist either but assumed a saltationist origin of biodiversity.
In one of Fabre's most famous experiments, he arranged processionary caterpillars to form a continuous loop around the edge of a pot. As each caterpillar instinctively followed the silken trail of the caterpillars in front of it, the group moved around in a circle for seven days.
Jean-Henri Fabre's last home and office, the Harmas de Fabre in Provence stands today as a museum devoted to his life and works.
The site of his birth, at St Léons, near Millau is now the site of Micropolis, a tourist attraction dedicated to popularising entomology and a museum on his life.
Fabre went on to accomplish many scholarly achievements. He was a popular teacher, physicist, chemist and botanist. However, he is probably best known for his findings in the field of entomology, the study of insects, and is considered by many to be the father of modern entomology. Much of his enduring popularity is due to his marvelous teaching ability and his manner of writing about the lives of insects in biographical form, which he preferred to a clinically detached, journalistic mode of recording. In doing so he combined what he called "my passion for scientific truth" with keen observations and an engaging, colloquial style of writing. Fabre noted: Others again have reproached me with my style, which has not the solemnity, nay, better, the dryness of the schools. They fear lest a page that is read without fatigue should not always be the expression of the truth. Were I to take their word for it, we are profound only on condition of being obscure.
Over the years he wrote a series of texts on insects and arachnids that are collectively known as the Souvenirs Entomologiques. Fabre's influence is felt in the later works of fellow naturalist Charles Darwin, who called Fabre "an inimitable observer". Fabre, however, rejected Darwin's theory of evolution; on the other hand he was not a Biblical creationist either but assumed a saltationist origin of biodiversity.
In one of Fabre's most famous experiments, he arranged processionary caterpillars to form a continuous loop around the edge of a pot. As each caterpillar instinctively followed the silken trail of the caterpillars in front of it, the group moved around in a circle for seven days.
Jean-Henri Fabre's last home and office, the Harmas de Fabre in Provence stands today as a museum devoted to his life and works.
The site of his birth, at St Léons, near Millau is now the site of Micropolis, a tourist attraction dedicated to popularising entomology and a museum on his life.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 25, 2020
How can one describe this amazing book? The most impressive thing about it, is how grand it is in spite of its humble object of interest, so a quick summary will give you nothing at all of what makes it so enchanting.
Perhaps it is grand, rather, not in spite of, but because its topic is insects, in particular a class of wasps that hunt. Now, it should be said, there are rumors that the habits of these wasps were an inspiration for the "Alien" from the movie of the same name, and whether true or not one could see how. The wasps in question provision their nests, tiny burrows in the sand or dirt, with food for the eggs that they will leave there before sealing up the burrow and leaving forever. Perhaps as a consequence of needing to leave enough meat for their offspring's entire youth, they do not kill their prey, but only immobilize it. If you identify too much with the weevil or caterpillar that is the victim, it is suggestive of a horror movie indeed. Of course, if you have seen plant life devoured by an onslaught of such prey, then you may find yourself rooting for the hunting wasps a bit more.
But the star of the show here is actually not the wasps, although they are interesting enough, it is the author. This appears to be the furthest thing from his intention, he seems to have had a genuine fascination with and enthusiasm for his topic. Listen to him talk about being interrupted in his observations by the local constabulary, worried that he is a poacher, or hear him express his disappointment as the wasp burrow that he was observing on a public pathway is trod upon (unknowingly) by two young military conscripts. He finds a wasp of just the sort he has been wishing to observe, just at the moment when it is preparing to provision its nest, and he gets wife, children, and friends to help him with experiments by searching for just the right kind of caterpillar to swap with the one it has brought home from the hunt (to see if it notices, and what it will do if it does). I cannot help but feel that if the typical scientific article were written in a style closer to Fabre's (ably translated by Alexander Teixiera de Mattos, preserving the spirit as well as the content), we would have a more scientifically literate society.
Here, he describes a hike (with company, some of them botanists) up Mont Ventoux:
"It is four o'clock in the morning. At the head of the caravan walks Triboulet, with his Mule and his Ass: Triboulet, the Nestor of the Ventoux guides. My botanical colleagues inspect the vegetation on either side of the road by the cold light of the dawn; the others talk. I follow the party with a barometer slung from my shoulder and a note-book and pencil in my hand.
My barometer, intended for taking the altitude of the principal botanical halts, soon becomes a pretext for attacks on the gourd with the rum. No sooner is a noteworthy plant observed than somebody cries: 'quick, let's look at the barometer!' And we all crowd around the gourd, the scientific instrument coming later. The coolness of the morning and our walk make us appreciate these references to the barometer so thoroughly that the level of the stimulant falls even more swiftly than that of the mercury. In the interests of the immediate future, I must consult Torricelli's tube a little less often."
It is as if we have combined the underfunded, but meticulously observant, amateur scientist with the raconteur. I should note that, not in this book but another, he made observations about the mating habits of praying mantises (you know the habit I speak of) which were being pooh-poohed by scientists a century later, that have more recently been found to be essentially accurate (19th century autodidact triumphs over 20th century professional scientist). Well, a theorist he was not (he objected to Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, not on religious grounds, but because he could imagine no way for the elaborate and programmatic behavior he witnessed in the insect world to have evolved by partial steps). But as an observer of the myriad fascinating ways in which the insect world can be of interest, if we notice it, he was perhaps unmatched.
Perhaps it is grand, rather, not in spite of, but because its topic is insects, in particular a class of wasps that hunt. Now, it should be said, there are rumors that the habits of these wasps were an inspiration for the "Alien" from the movie of the same name, and whether true or not one could see how. The wasps in question provision their nests, tiny burrows in the sand or dirt, with food for the eggs that they will leave there before sealing up the burrow and leaving forever. Perhaps as a consequence of needing to leave enough meat for their offspring's entire youth, they do not kill their prey, but only immobilize it. If you identify too much with the weevil or caterpillar that is the victim, it is suggestive of a horror movie indeed. Of course, if you have seen plant life devoured by an onslaught of such prey, then you may find yourself rooting for the hunting wasps a bit more.
But the star of the show here is actually not the wasps, although they are interesting enough, it is the author. This appears to be the furthest thing from his intention, he seems to have had a genuine fascination with and enthusiasm for his topic. Listen to him talk about being interrupted in his observations by the local constabulary, worried that he is a poacher, or hear him express his disappointment as the wasp burrow that he was observing on a public pathway is trod upon (unknowingly) by two young military conscripts. He finds a wasp of just the sort he has been wishing to observe, just at the moment when it is preparing to provision its nest, and he gets wife, children, and friends to help him with experiments by searching for just the right kind of caterpillar to swap with the one it has brought home from the hunt (to see if it notices, and what it will do if it does). I cannot help but feel that if the typical scientific article were written in a style closer to Fabre's (ably translated by Alexander Teixiera de Mattos, preserving the spirit as well as the content), we would have a more scientifically literate society.
Here, he describes a hike (with company, some of them botanists) up Mont Ventoux:
"It is four o'clock in the morning. At the head of the caravan walks Triboulet, with his Mule and his Ass: Triboulet, the Nestor of the Ventoux guides. My botanical colleagues inspect the vegetation on either side of the road by the cold light of the dawn; the others talk. I follow the party with a barometer slung from my shoulder and a note-book and pencil in my hand.
My barometer, intended for taking the altitude of the principal botanical halts, soon becomes a pretext for attacks on the gourd with the rum. No sooner is a noteworthy plant observed than somebody cries: 'quick, let's look at the barometer!' And we all crowd around the gourd, the scientific instrument coming later. The coolness of the morning and our walk make us appreciate these references to the barometer so thoroughly that the level of the stimulant falls even more swiftly than that of the mercury. In the interests of the immediate future, I must consult Torricelli's tube a little less often."
It is as if we have combined the underfunded, but meticulously observant, amateur scientist with the raconteur. I should note that, not in this book but another, he made observations about the mating habits of praying mantises (you know the habit I speak of) which were being pooh-poohed by scientists a century later, that have more recently been found to be essentially accurate (19th century autodidact triumphs over 20th century professional scientist). Well, a theorist he was not (he objected to Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, not on religious grounds, but because he could imagine no way for the elaborate and programmatic behavior he witnessed in the insect world to have evolved by partial steps). But as an observer of the myriad fascinating ways in which the insect world can be of interest, if we notice it, he was perhaps unmatched.
December 27, 2007
Perhaps one of the best books I've ever read. Completely none academic in approach. The writing style reflects the authors love and obsession with discovering the world in which we live. In the book he takes you through the process that lend him to discover the nature and life of hunting wasps. These wasps, as Fabre shows, have an intimate knowledge of the prey in which they hunt, but not just the surface features, rather a surgeons knowledge of the anatomy of their victim. For they, in most cases, do not kill but paralyze by striking, in a precise way, the nervous system of their prey.
Amazing book.
Amazing book.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews