George Bernard Shaw - "The Inca of Perusalem"

P. G. Wodehouse - "Indiscretions of Archie"

Arthur M. Winfield - "The Rover Boys out West"

William Dean Howells - "An Open Eyed Conspiracy An Idyl of Saratoga"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: The Wonders of Instinct

J >> J. H. Fabre >> The Wonders of Instinct




And this is done with exquisite precision, though the equilibrium is sometimes anything but steady. My rearing-glasses supply me with magnificent examples. Crawling up the sides, the Snails imprisoned in my apparatus sometimes reach the top, which is closed with a glass pane, and fix themselves to it with a speck of glair. This is a mere temporary halt, in which the Mollusc is miserly with his adhesive product, and the merest shake is enough to loosen the shell and send it to the bottom of the jar.

Now it is not unusual for the Glow-worm to hoist himself up there, with the help of a certain climbing-organ that makes up for his weak legs. He selects his quarry, makes a minute inspection of it to find an entrance-slit, nibbles at it a little, renders it insensible and, without delay, proceeds to prepare the gruel which he will consume for days on end.

When he leaves the table, the shell is found to be absolutely empty; and yet this shell, which was fixed to the glass by a very faint stickiness, has not come loose, has not even shifted its position in the smallest degree: without any protest from the hermit gradually converted into broth, it has been drained on the very spot at which the first attack was delivered. These small details tell us how promptly the anaesthetic bite takes effect; they teach us how dexterously the Glow-worm treats his Snail without causing him to fall from a very slippery, vertical support and without even shaking him on his slight line of adhesion.

Under these conditions of equilibrium, the operator's short, clumsy legs are obviously not enough; a special accessory apparatus is needed to defy the danger of slipping and to seize the unseizable. And this apparatus the Lampyris possesses. At the hinder end of the animal we see a white spot which the lens separates into some dozen short, fleshy appendages, sometimes gathered into a cluster, sometimes spread into a rosette. There is your organ of adhesion and locomotion. If he would fix himself somewhere, even on a very smooth surface, such as a grass-stalk, the Glow-worm opens his rosette and spreads it wide on the support, to which it adheres by its own stickiness. The same organ, rising and falling, opening and closing, does much to assist the act of progression. In short, the Glow-worm is a new sort of self-propelled cripple, who decks his hind-quarters with a dainty white rose, a kind of hand with twelve fingers, not jointed, but moving in every direction: tubular fingers which do not seize, but stick.

The same organ serves another purpose: that of a toilet-sponge and brush. At a moment of rest, after a meal, the Glow-worm passes and repasses the said brush over his head, back, sides and hinder parts, a performance made possible by the flexibility of his spine. This is done point by point, from one end of the body to the other, with a scrupulous persistency that proves the great interest which he takes in the operation. What is his object in thus sponging himself, in dusting and polishing himself so carefully? It is a question, apparently, of removing a few atoms of dust or else some traces of viscidity that remain from the evil contact with the Snail. A wash and brush-up is not superfluous when one leaves the tub in which the Mollusc has been treated.

If the Glow-worm possessed no other talent than that of chloroforming his prey by means of a few tweaks resembling kisses, he would be unknown to the vulgar herd; but he also knows how to light himself like a beacon; he shines, which is an excellent manner of achieving fame. Let us consider more particularly the female, who, while retaining her larval shape, becomes marriageable and glows at her best during the hottest part of summer. The lighting-apparatus occupies the last three segments of the abdomen. On each of the first two it takes the form, on the ventral surface, of a wide belt covering almost the whole of the arch; on the third the luminous part is much less and consists simply of two small crescent-shaped markings, or rather two spots which shine through to the back and are visible both above and below the animal. Belts and spots emit a glorious white light, delicately tinged with blue. The general lighting of the Glow-worm thus comprises two groups: first, the wide belts of the two segments preceding the last; secondly, the two spots of the final segments. The two belts, the exclusive attribute of the marriageable female, are the parts richest in light: to glorify her wedding, the future mother dons her brightest gauds; she lights her two resplendent scarves. But, before that, from the time of the hatching, she had only the modest rush-light of the stern. This efflorescence of light is the equivalent of the final metamorphosis, which is usually represented by the gift of wings and flight. Its brilliance heralds the pairing-time. Wings and flight there will be none: the female retains her humble larval form, but she kindles her blazing beacon.

The male, on his side, is fully transformed, changes his shape, acquires wings and wing-cases; nevertheless, like the female, he possesses, from the time when he is hatched, the pale lamp of the end segment. This luminous aspect of the stern is characteristic of the entire Glow-worm tribe, independently of sex and season. It appears upon the budding grub and continues throughout life unchanged. And we must not forget to add that it is visible on the dorsal as well as on the ventral surface, whereas the two large belts peculiar to the female shine only under the abdomen.

My hand is not so steady nor my sight so good as once they were; but, as far as they allow me, I consult anatomy for the structure of the luminous organs. I take a scrap of the epidermis and manage to separate pretty nearly half of one of the shining belts. I place my preparation under the microscope. On the skin a sort of white-wash lies spread, formed of a very fine, granular substance. This is certainly the light-producing matter. To examine this white layer more closely is beyond the power of my weary eyes. Just beside it is a curious air-tube, whose short and remarkably wide stem branches suddenly into a sort of bushy tuft of very delicate ramifications. These creep over the luminous sheet, or even dip into it. That is all.

The luminescence, therefore, is controlled by the respiratory organs and the work produced is an oxidation. The white sheet supplies the oxidizable matter and the thick air-tube spreading into a tufty bush distributes the flow of air over it. There remains the question of the substance whereof this sheet is formed. The first suggestion was phosphorus, in the chemist's sense of the word. The Glow-worm was calcined and treated with the violent reagents that bring the simple substances to light; but no one, so far as I know, has obtained a satisfactory answer along these lines. Phosphorus seems to play no part here, in spite of the name of phosphorescence which is sometimes bestowed upon the Glow-worm's gleam. The answer lies elsewhere, no one knows where.

We are better-informed as regards another question. Has the Glow-worm a free control of the light which he emits? Can he turn it on or down or put it out as he pleases? Has he an opaque screen which is drawn over the flame at will, or is that flame always left exposed? There is no need for any such mechanism: the insect has something better for its revolving light.

The thick air-tube supplying the light-producing sheet increases the flow of air and the light is intensified; the same tube, swayed by the animal's will, slackens or even suspends the passage of air and the light grows fainter or even goes out. It is, in short, the mechanism of a lamp which is regulated by the access of air to the wick.

Excitement can set the attendant air-duct in motion. We must here distinguish between two cases: that of the gorgeous scarves, the exclusive ornament of the female ripe for matrimony, and that of the modest fairy-lamp on the last segment, which both sexes kindle at any age. In the second case, the extinction caused by a flurry is sudden and complete, or nearly so. In my nocturnal hunts for young Glow-worms, measuring about 5 millimetres long (.195 inch.--Translator's Note.), I can plainly see the glimmer on the blades of grass; but, should the least false step disturb a neighbouring twig, the light goes out at once and the coveted insect becomes invisible. Upon the full-grown females, lit up with their nuptial scarves, even a violent start has but a slight effect and often none at all.

I fire a gun beside a wire-gauze cage in which I am rearing my menagerie of females in the open air. The explosion produces no result. The illumination continues, as bright and placid as before. I take a spray and rain down a slight shower of cold water upon the flock. Not one of my animals puts out its light; at the very most, there is a brief pause in the radiance; and then only in some cases. I send a puff of smoke from my pipe into the cage. This time the pause is more marked. There are even some extinctions, but these do not last long. Calm soon returns and the light is renewed as brightly as ever. I take some of the captives in my fingers, turn and return them, tease them a little. The illumination continues and is not much diminished, if I do not press hard with my thumb. At this period, with the pairing close at hand, the insect is in all the fervour of its passionate splendour, and nothing short of very serious reasons would make it put out its signals altogether.

All things considered, there is not a doubt but that the Glow-worm himself manages his lighting apparatus, extinguishing and rekindling it at will; but there is one point at which the voluntary agency of the insect is without effect. I detach a strip of the epidermis showing one of the luminescent sheets and place it in a glass tube, which I close with a plug of damp wadding, to avoid an over-rapid evaporation. Well, this scrap of carcass shines away merrily, although not quite as brilliantly as on the living body.

Life's aid is now superfluous. The oxidizable substance, the luminescent sheet, is in direct communication with the surrounding atmosphere; the flow of oxygen through an air-tube is not necessary; and the luminous emission continues to take place, in the same way as when it is produced by the contact of the air with the real phosphorus of the chemists. Let us add that, in aerated water, the luminousness continues as brilliant as in the free air, but that it is extinguished in water deprived of its air by boiling. No better proof could be found of what I have already propounded, namely, that the Glow-worm's light is the effect of a slow oxidation.

The light is white, calm and soft to the eyes and suggests a spark dropped by the full moon. Despite its splendour, it is a very feeble illuminant. If we move a Glow-worm along a line of print, in perfect darkness, we can easily make out the letters, one by one, and even words, when these are not too long; but nothing more is visible beyond a narrow zone. A lantern of this kind soon tires the reader's patience.

Suppose a group of Glow-worms placed almost touching one another. Each of them sheds its glimmer, which ought, one would think, to light up its neighbours by reflexion and give us a clear view of each individual specimen. But not at all: the luminous party is a chaos in which our eyes are unable to distinguish any definite form at a medium distance. The collective lights confuse the light-bearers into one vague whole.

Photography gives us a striking proof of this. I have a score of females, all at the height of their splendour, in a wire-gauze cage in the open air. A tuft of thyme forms a grove in the centre of their establishment. When night comes, my captives clamber to this pinnacle and strive to show off their luminous charms to the best advantage at every point of the horizon, thus forming along the twigs marvellous clusters from which I expected magnificent effects on the photographer's plates and paper. My hopes were disappointed. All that I obtain is white, shapeless patches, denser here and less dense there according to the numbers forming the group. There is no picture of the Glow-worms themselves; not a trace either of the tuft of thyme. For want of satisfactory light, the glorious firework is represented by a blurred splash of white on a black ground.

The beacons of the female Glow-worms are evidently nuptial signals, invitations to the pairing; but observe that they are lighted on the lower surface of the abdomen and face the ground, whereas the summoned males, whose flights are sudden and uncertain, travel overhead, in the air, sometimes a great way up. In its normal position, therefore, the glittering lure is concealed from the eyes of those concerned; it is covered by the thick bulk of the bride. The lantern ought really to gleam on the back and not under the belly; otherwise the light is hidden under a bushel.

The anomaly is corrected in a very ingenious fashion, for every female has her little wiles of coquetry. At nightfall, every evening, my caged captives make for the tuft of thyme with which I have thoughtfully furnished the prison and climb to the top of the upper branches, those most in sight. Here, instead of keeping quiet, as they did at the foot of the bush just now, they indulge in violent exercises, twist the tip of their very flexible abdomen, turn it to one side, turn it to the other, jerk it in every direction. In this way, the searchlight cannot fail to gleam, at one moment or another, before the eyes of every male who goes a-wooing in the neighbourhood, whether on the ground or in the air.

It is very like the working of the revolving mirror used in catching Larks. If stationary, the little contrivance would leave the bird indifferent; turning and breaking up its light in rapid flashes, it excites it.

While the female Glow-worm has her tricks for summoning her swains, the male, on his side, is provided with an optical apparatus suited to catch from afar the least reflection of the calling signal. His corselet expands into a shield and overlaps his head considerably in the form of a peaked cap or a shade, the object of which appears to be to limit the field of vision and concentrate the view upon the luminous speck to be discerned. Under this arch are the two eyes, which are relatively enormous, exceedingly convex, shaped like a skull-cap and contiguous to the extent of leaving only a narrow groove for the insertion of the antennae. This double eye, occupying almost the whole face of the insect and contained in the cavern formed by the spreading peak of the corselet, is a regular Cyclops' eye.

At the moment of the pairing the illumination becomes much fainter, is almost extinguished; all that remains alight is the humble fairy-lamp of the last segment. This discreet night-light is enough for the wedding, while, all around, the host of nocturnal insects, lingering over their respective affairs, murmur the universal marriage-hymn. The laying follows very soon. The round, white eggs are laid, or rather strewn at random, without the least care on the mother's part, either on the more or less cool earth or on a blade of grass. These brilliant ones know nothing at all of family affection.

Here is a very singular thing: the Glow-worm's eggs are luminous even when still contained in the mother's womb. If I happen by accident to crush a female big with germs that have reached maturity, a shiny streak runs along my fingers, as though I had broken some vessel filled with a phosphorescent fluid. The lens shows me that I am wrong. The luminosity comes from the cluster of eggs forced out of the ovary. Besides, as laying-time approaches, the phosphorescence of the eggs is already made manifest through this clumsy midwifery. A soft opalescent light shines through the integument of the belly.

The hatching follows soon after the laying. The young of either sex have two little rush-lights on the last segment. At the approach of the severe weather they go down into the ground, but not very far. In my rearing-jars, which are supplied with fine and very loose earth, they descend to a depth of three or four inches at most. I dig up a few in mid-winter. I always find them carrying their faint stern-light. About the month of April they come up again to the surface, there to continue and complete their evolution.

From start to finish the Glow-worm's life is one great orgy of light. The eggs are luminous; the grubs likewise. The full-grown females are magnificent lighthouses, the adult males retain the glimmer which the grubs already possessed. We can understand the object of the feminine beacon; but of what use is all the rest of the pyrotechnic display? To my great regret, I cannot tell. It is and will be, for many a day to come, perhaps for all time, the secret of animal physics, which is deeper than the physics of the books.


CHAPTER 14. THE CABBAGE-CATERPILLAR.

The cabbage of our modern kitchen-gardens is a semi-artificial plant, the produce of our agricultural ingenuity quite as much as of the niggardly gifts of nature. Spontaneous vegetation supplied us with the long-stalked, scanty-leaved, ill-smelling wilding, as found, according to the botanists, on the ocean cliffs. He had need of a rare inspiration who first showed faith in this rustic clown and proposed to improve it in his garden-patch.

Progressing by infinitesimal degrees, culture wrought miracles. It began by persuading the wild cabbage to discard its wretched leaves, beaten by the sea-winds, and to replace them by others, ample and fleshy and close-fitting. The gentle cabbage submitted without protest. It deprived itself of the joys of light by arranging its leaves in a large compact head, white and tender. In our day, among the successors of those first tiny hearts, are some that, by virtue of their massive bulk, have earned the glorious name of chou quintal, as who should say a hundredweight of cabbage. They are real monuments of green stuff.

Later, man thought of obtaining a generous dish with a thousand little sprays of the inflorescence. The cabbage consented. Under the cover of the central leaves, it gorged with food its sheaves of blossom, its flower-stalks, its branches and worked the lot into a fleshy conglomeration. This is the cauliflower, the broccoli.

Differently entreated, the plant, economizing in the centre of its shoot, set a whole family of close-wrapped cabbages ladder-wise on a tall stem. A multitude of dwarf leaf-buds took the place of the colossal head. This is the Brussels sprout.

Next comes the turn of the stump, an unprofitable, almost wooden, thing, which seemed never to have any other purpose than to act as a support for the plant. But the tricks of gardeners are capable of everything, so much so that the stalk yields to the grower's suggestions and becomes fleshy and swells into an ellipse similar to the turnip, of which it possesses all the merits of corpulence, flavour and delicacy; only the strange product serves as a base for a few sparse leaves, the last protests of a real stem that refuses to lose its attributes entirely. This is the cole-rape.

If the stem allows itself to be allured, why not the root? It does, in fact, yield to the blandishments of agriculture: it dilates its pivot into a flat turnip, which half emerges from the ground. This is the rutabaga, or swede, the turnip-cabbage of our northern districts.

Incomparably docile under our nursing, the cabbage has given its all for our nourishment and that of our cattle: its leaves, its flowers, its buds, its stalk, its root; all that it now wants is to combine the ornamental with the useful, to smarten itself, to adorn our flowerbeds and cut a good figure on a drawing-room table. It has done this to perfection, not with its flowers, which, in their modesty, continue intractable, but with its curly and variegated leaves, which have the undulating grace of Ostrich-feathers and the rich colouring of a mixed bouquet. None who beholds it in this magnificence will recognize the near relation of the vulgar "greens" that form the basis of our cabbage-soup.

The cabbage, first in order of date in our kitchen-gardens, was held in high esteem by classic antiquity, next after the bean and, later, the pea; but it goes much farther back, so far indeed that no memories of its acquisition remain. History pays but little attention to these details: it celebrates the battle-fields whereon we meet our death, but scorns to speak of the ploughed fields whereby we thrive; it knows the names of the kings' bastards, but cannot tell us the origin of wheat. That is the way of human folly.

This silence respecting the precious plants that serve as food is most regrettable. The cabbage in particular, the venerable cabbage, that denizen of the most ancient garden-plots, would have had extremely interesting things to teach us. It is a treasure in itself, but a treasure twice exploited, first by man and next by the caterpillar of the Pieris, the common Large White Butterfly whom we all know (Pieris brassicae, Lin.). This caterpillar feeds indiscriminately on the leaves of all varieties of cabbage, however dissimilar in appearance: he nibbles with the same appetite red cabbage and broccoli, curly greens and savoy, swedes and turnip-tops, in short, all that our ingenuity, lavish of time and patience, has been able to obtain from the original plant since the most distant ages.

But what did the caterpillar eat before our cabbages supplied him with copious provender? Obviously the Pieris did not wait for the advent of man and his horticultural works in order to take part in the joys of life. She lived without us and would have continued to live without us. A Butterfly's existence is not subject to ours, but rightfully independent of our aid.

Before the white-heart, the cauliflower, the savoy and the others were invented, the Pieris' caterpillar certainly did not lack food: he browsed on the wild cabbage of the cliffs, the parent of all the latter-day wealth; but, as this plant is not widely distributed and is, in any case, limited to certain maritime regions, the welfare of the Butterfly, whether on plain or hill, demanded a more luxuriant and more common plant for pasturage. This plant was apparently one of the Cruciferae, more or less seasoned with sulpheretted essence, like the cabbages. Let us experiment on these lines.

I rear the Pieris' caterpillars from the egg upwards on the wall-rocket (Diplotaxis tenuifolia, Dec.), which imbibes strong spices along the edge of the paths and at the foot of the walls. Penned in a large wire-gauze bell-cage, they accept this provender without demur; they nibble it with the same appetite as if it were cabbage; and they end by producing chrysalids and Butterflies. The change of fare causes not the least trouble.

I am equally successful with other crucifers of a less marked flavour: white mustard (Sinapis incana, Lin.), dyer's woad (Isatis tinctoria, Lin.), wild radish (Raphanus raphanistrum, Lin.), whitlow pepperwort (Lepidium draba, Lin.), hedge-mustard (Sisymbrium officinale, Scop.). On the other hand, the leaves of the lettuce, the bean, the pea, the corn-salad are obstinately refused. Let us be content with what we have seen: the fare has been sufficiently varied to show us that the cabbage-caterpillar feeds exclusively on a large number of crucifers, perhaps even on all.

As these experiments are made in the enclosure of a bell-cage, one might imagine that captivity impels the flock to feed, in the absence of better things, on what it would refuse were it free to hunt for itself. Having naught else within their reach, the starvelings consume any and all Cruciferae, without distinction of species. Can things sometimes be the same in the open fields, where I play none of my tricks? Can the family of the White Butterfly be settled on other Crucifers than the cabbage? I start a quest along the paths near the gardens and end by finding on wild radish and white mustard colonies as crowded and prosperous as those established on cabbage.

Now, except when the metamorphosis is at hand, the caterpillar of the White Butterfly never travels: he does all his growing on the identical plant whereon he saw the light. The caterpillars observed on the wild radish, as well as other households, are not, therefore, emigrants who have come as a matter of fancy from some cabbage-patch in the neighbourhood: they have hatched on the very leaves where I find them. Hence I arrive at this conclusion: the White Butterfly, who is fitful in her flight, chooses cabbage first, to dab her eggs upon, and different Cruciferae next, varying greatly in appearance.

How does the Pieris manage to know her way about her botanical domain? We have seen the Larini (A species of Weevils found on thistle-heads.--Translator's Note.), those explorers of fleshy receptacles with an artichoke flavour, astonish us with their knowledge of the flora of the thistle tribe; but their lore might, at a pinch, be explained by the method followed at the moment of housing the egg. With their rostrum, they prepare niches and dig out basins in the receptacle exploited and consequently they taste the thing a little before entrusting their eggs to it. On the other hand, the Butterfly, a nectar-drinker, makes not the least enquiry into the savoury qualities of the leafage; at most dipping her proboscis into the flowers, she abstracts a mouthful of syrup. This means of investigation, moreover, would be of no use to her, for the plant selected for the establishing of her family is, for the most part, not yet in flower. The mother flits for a moment around the plant; and that swift examination is enough: the emission of eggs takes place if the provender be found suitable.