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Cuvier’s History of the Natural Sciences

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Georges Cuvier

8. Early Eighteenth-Century Advances in Zoology

19. Zoological Contributions of René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur

Texte intégral

Caterpillars and butterflies. Original drawings by Mademoiselle Dumoustier of illustrations for the Histoire des insectes, de Mr de Réaumur, published in 6 vols, 1734-1742, tome 1. Cliché Bibliothèque centrale, MNHN.

1Messieurs,

  • 1 [Charles-Jean-François Hénault (born 8 February 1685, Paris; died 24 November 1770, Paris), a Fren (...)
  • 2 [Philippe II, Duke of Orleans, see Lesson 1, note 36, above.]
  • 3 [The Royal and Military Order of Saint Louis, a military Order of Chivalry founded on 5 April 1693 (...)

2René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur was born in La Rochelle in 1683. After studying law, he came to Paris in 1703. President Hénault,1 one of his relatives, presented him to the world and in 1708, despite his young age, he became a member of the Academy of Sciences. He was admitted to this scholarly society for mathematics and mechanics but he worked in almost all other sections. The Duke of Orleans,2 then Regent and a connoisseur of sciences, gave him a pension of twelve thousand livres to reward his works on steel and iron and other useful products that did not exist before him. He accepted under the condition that the pension would be reversible to the Academy after his death. In 1735, he became intendant of the Order of Saint Louis.3 He died in 1757 from a fall in his garden.

  • 4 [François-David Hérissant (born 29 September 1714, Rouen; died 21 August 1773, Paris), a French an (...)
  • 5 [Mathurin Jacques Brisson, see Lesson 18, note 28, above.]

3To complete his works, he bequeathed his papers to the Academy, which filled one hundred and thirty-eight large portfolios. He had formed a cabinet of natural history, the only one on zoology and the foundation of the current museum of the Jardin des plantes, at least for birds. Some fine men contributed to the formation of this cabinet including Hérissant,4 famous for his anatomical research, and Brisson5 who developed an ornithology and was the curator of Réaumur’s collection.

  • 6 [Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire des insectes, Paris: De l’Imprimerie Royale, 1734-1742, 6 vols: (...)
  • 7 [Three metamorphic states of an insect: egg, larva, and adult.]

4Réaumur’s work of interest for us is called Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire des insectes.6 It has six volumes in quarto, the first of which was published in 1734 and the sixth, which was not supposed to be the last in the author’s plan but was the last he published himself, in 1742. As we can see, Réaumur published one volume about every two year. His work is a collection of observations performed with great perseverance and also sagacity as the means he used to know the habits, the instincts, the behaviors, and the lives of each insect in its three states7 were as remarkable as his results were singular. It can be asserted that his book is one of the most beautiful in natural history.

  • 8 [Processionary caterpillars, caterpillars that move and reach by forming long, over-the-surface, h (...)

5The first volume is on caterpillars and butterflies and contains an accurate description of their internal and external parts, and the parts of their chrysalis. Then the plants on which each species lives are indicated as well as the precautions it takes to preserve the chrysalis during its immobile state. Some caterpillars wrap themselves in a cocoon, like silkworms, and lose it when transformed into butterflies. Others, like the oak caterpillar, called giant peacock, spin a cocoon in elastic silk, in the shape of a bottle, at the extremity of which there are converging silks, placed so that the butterfly can get out but no outside animal can get inside the cocoon. In one word, each caterpillar has a specific way of building its nest. The same applies to their habits. Some caterpillars live in isolation, others in society. Others, like the processionary caterpillars, walk in a determined order, from which they got their name.8

  • 9 [Ichneumons, members of the parasitoid wasp family Ichneumonidae of the order Hymenoptera. Importa (...)

6Réaumur’s second volume contains the continuation of similar research with, in addition, a curious history of the insect enemies of caterpillars. The female of some flies, called ichneumons,9 has a stinger that it uses on a caterpillar to lay its eggs. The eggs are hatched inside the caterpillar. The holes are made with such accuracy that the caterpillar keeps just enough parts to live until the worms hatch and feed on its flesh. Those worms metamorphose into flies that will lay their eggs in the body of a caterpillar of the same species, which was eaten immediately after they hatched.

7Other flies attacks caterpillars differently; they confine them in small nests that they construct with mud and in which they lay their eggs. Once the eggs hatch, the larvae eat the caterpillars, the number of which depends on the species of fly. There are many similar observations in the volume we are mentioning. It is as remarkable as the first volume.

  • 10 [Leaf miners, insects, the larvae of which live in and eat the leaf tissue of plants. The vast maj (...)

8The third volume contains the history of smaller insects with particular habits. The first mentioned are the worms that penetrate inside leaves without altering their surface, settle between their layers, and eat up their parenchyma. They are therefore called leaf miners.10 Then we have moths that spin a mat within man-made animal products, such as bed sheets and furs. Wrapped into a sort of woolen cylinder, they only emerge to eat up the fabric.

  • 11 [Caddis flies, small moth-like insects, closely related to moths and butterflies, characterized by (...)

9Other moths live in wax: they dig inside honeycombs without eating the honey and only feed on wax. The caddis flies,11 which are four-winged aquatic flies, do not make a case with fragments of fabric; instead, they gather small sticks, grasses, or gravel, depending on the species, and hold them together with an agglutinating substance that they secrete from their mouth. They build a small cone-shaped case that they drag along while they are in their larva state. The case is closed with a bit of silk at both ends and the larva stays inside until it transforms into a butterfly.

  • 12 [Hemerobiid, an insect of the brown lacewing family Hemerobiidae of the order Neuroptera, characte (...)

10Then, there are aphids. Réaumur describes their life on leaves and on their enemies. While each insect destroys other living things, it also has its own enemy in nature, maintaining a sort of balance. The enemies of aphids are fly larvae that do not penetrate their body but venture within the middle of a group of them, grab them with their proboscis, and eat them up without encountering any resistance. The larva of a four-winged fly, called an hemerobiid12 in the current classification, is one of the enemies of aphids. It eats several hundred a day and is known as the aphid lion.

  • 13 [Plant galls, abnormal outgrowths of plant tissues, similar to benign tumors or warts in animals. (...)
  • 14 [The rose gall, pincushion gall, or moss gall develops as a chemically induced distortion of an un (...)

11Finally, in the volume we are analyzing, Réaumur studies four-winged flies that lay their eggs within the inner layer of a leaf or a branch. When these insects dig the hole to lay their eggs, their body, and maybe an accompanying foreign fluid, produce an irritation on the plant that initiates the appearance of a new body —oak galls,13 which have the aspect of fruit of different colors, are accidental tumors produced to contain and feed the small worms developing inside. When opening one of these galls, some small hatched worms can be found. After their transformation into flies, they pierce their envelope —the gall— and will produce other tumors for the same goal. Once the insects emerge, a small hole can be noticed on the gall. Many plants other than oak have galls of different forms. The rose gall,14 also known as the moss gall, is made of yellow and red filaments in the middle of which the worms can be found.

  • 15 [Cochineal, see Volume 2, Lesson 4, note 63.]
  • 16 [Kermes, a red dye derived from the dried bodies of females of scale insects of the genus Kermes, (...)

12The fourth volume contains the history of more or less singular insects, the females of which are wingless and live on plants, like aphids. But they remain immobile, sucking through the plant to feed. Once the males, which are smaller than the females, have fertilized them, the females become extremely large and lay eggs. They dry up and serve as a case for their young. The latter get out from under the corpse of the mother and spreads on the same plant to repeat the phenomena I just described. These animals called gall-insects by Réaumur include very useful species like the cochineal15 and the kermes of Poland.16

  • 17 [Sawflies or wood wasps, insects belonging to suborder Symphyta of the order Hymenoptera, distingu (...)

13The fourth volume also presents the history of two-winged flies —all ordinary flies living on meat, decayed matter, excrements, and putrid water. Their metamorphoses, the form of some larvae, and their life habits are remarkable. Their history continues in the fifth volume, which also presents sawflies.17 These four-winged flies are called sawflies for their saw-like stinger that they use to cut the bark within which they lay their eggs. Larvae or worms hatch out that look like caterpillars. But they do not transform into butterflies but instead into four-winged flies.

  • 18 [Cicada, any of some 1,300 species of insects of the superfamily Cicadoidea, order Hemiptera, wide (...)
  • 19 Only the male has the musical organ. [M. de St.-Agy]
  • 20 [Cerambyx, a genus of beetles of the family Cerambycidae (collectively known as the longhorn beetl (...)

14The fifth volume also includes the history of cicadas18 from warm countries and famous for the noise they make on summer nights. Réaumur describes their larvae, which live in the earth, their mobile chrysalis, and finally the fully developed insect. The larvae live hidden between tree roots, and the fully formed insects climb out on the same tree and feed by sucking it. Réaumur describes the anatomy of the instruments used by the cicada for its song. There is a small elastic drum-like instrument and a small cylinder, with raised and thick ribs inside the abdomen. The cicada rubs its cylinder like a bow on a drum to produce the sound we know.19 Insects as a whole lack a voice like the animals in the three first classes: mammals, birds, and reptiles. These three classes have lungs and a trachea and produce a voice analogous to ours. Some fishes only emit a sound, the origin and the nature of which are not well known as it does not depend on lungs, trachea, or larynx, organs that do not exist in fishes. Other animal classes are mute. Insects other than cicadas that produce a noise have a similar instrument, some sort of bow but never a wind instrument. Grasshoppers, which produce a noise when hopping and even when resting, make this noise by rubbing their large thighs against their wings, with threads with elastic ribs. They have a small string instrument. The sound of Cerambyx20 is of the same nature as that of grasshoppers. The percussion of the wings of insects with air produces the buzzing in flight.

  • 21 [Aristotle, see Volume 1, Lessons 7 and 8.]

15In the same volume, Réaumur presents the history of bees, a subject of admiration in all ages. It is not that their instinct is superior to other insects but they are more easily noticeable because they live in a large society. The bee is also domesticated for useful products and, therefore, there are many opportunities to observe it. Aristotle21 gave many interesting details on this insect but the Moderns surpassed him and his successors among the Ancients. Recent authors, of whom I will review the works in the second half of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth century, also added to Réaumur’s observations. Nevertheless, his history of bees is extremely interesting.

  • 22 [Jan Swammerdam, see Volume 2, Lesson 16, note 50.]

16To observe the work of honeybees, Réaumur conceived of a niche with glass sides. A bellshaped glass house is not adequate because the bees coat the inside of the bell with an opaque substance, a type of resin that prevents from seeing anything. The glass sides placed by Réaumur are only spaced by the width of a honeycomb or two rows of cells back to back. It was possible to see the entire interior of the beehive. Réaumur thought of course of covering the beehive with a black case so that the bees would not coat the glass. He observed the habits of bees from the moment they brought the wax to the moment they placed the eggs in the cells. He observed them form hexagonal tubes, ending with three-sided pyramids, a shape that saves matter and space. He observed that the bee called the “king” by the Ancients was not a male but the only female in each hive, and therefore should be called the “queen.” He noticed that this queen produced thousands of eggs and laid one in each cell, a fact already recognized by Swammerdam22 and other authors.

17The queen is a worker bee that receives special food. All neutral bees are also female but they are infertile. When they are dissected, it can be seen that they only have the germ of an ovary. For the ordinary bees to become queens or fertile females, they would only need more abundant and specific food.

18Eggs that produce males are laid in larger cells than those reserved for neutral bees. A small number of eggs, which should, of course, have produced only ordinary bees, are placed in cells expressly made outside of the comb, with a larger capacity. These cells have the shape of an upside-down bottle and contain a honey different from the one eaten by ordinary bees. Each egg laid there produces a queen that takes with her some males and young workers to form a new swarm. Immediately after hatching, queens become enemies of other queens. The first thing done by a queen released from its cell is to pierce and destroy cells destined to produce other queens as if it was in a state of fury against those not yet hatched. But some individuals pull through and become the leaders of new swarms. When two queens meet in the same hive, they fight until one dies. The queen is the magnet of a swarm. The swarm follows anyone carrying the queen, and if the queen dies, the swarm will disperse, cease all work, and die for lack of food during the winter unless it joins another group of bees with a queen. The industry of these insects therefore depends on the existence of the queen that has to produce other bees.

  • 23 [Mason bee, a common name for species of bees of the genus Osmia, of the family Megachilidae, name (...)
  • 24 [Carpenter bee, a common name for some 500 species of large bees of the genus Xylocopa, of the sub (...)

19In the sixth volume he produced himself, Réaumur gives the history of mason bees,23 carpenter bees,24 wasps, hornets, and bumblebees. The mason bee uses sand grains to build small cavities in the shape of a thimble that it fills with honey and in which it lays its eggs. It builds three or four and then leaves. The eggs hatch, the larvae feed on the honey placed in their cells, and once transformed into fully developed mason bees —and even if they did not observe the construction of their small house— they start building the exact same cells as the one in which they were born in order to lay their own eggs.

20The carpenter bee lays its eggs in cells it digs under the bark of trees. Each cell, containing one egg, is pierced in parallel with the bark so that each worm, once past its larva and chrysalis stage, has only little wood to pierce in order to get out. The carpenter bee often digs its cells in dead wood or stakes, always in parallel with the wood surface. Other flies dig holes in the earth. Others build nests with moss to lay their eggs.

  • 25 [Abraham Trembley, see Volume 2, Lesson 15, note 61.]

21In the preface of the volume I am reviewing, Réaumur mentions Trembley’s wonderful discoveries of the polyp and its reproduction mode.25 Trembley had not published his book yet but shared his discovery with Réaumur before anyone else.

  • 26 [The seventh volume of Réaumur’s Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire des insectes was published post (...)
  • 27 [Jean-Baptiste Huzard, see Lesson 15, note 104, above.]
  • 28 [Institut de France, see Lesson 8, note 78, above.]

22The seventh volume of this famous scientist was not produced before his death.26 Part of the memoirs meant to compose it is found in Mr. Huzard’s library27 and in the archives of the Institute.28 They are not yet ready for publication and focus on grasshoppers. There should have been two other volumes but their situation is unknown.

  • 29 [Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, see Volume 1, Lesson 7, note 39; and Volume 2, Lesson 4, (...)
  • 30 [A reference to the Journal de Trévoux, formally the Mémoires pour l’Histoire des Sciences & des B (...)
  • 31 [Buffon’s Histoire Naturelle, générale et particulière, avec la description du Cabinet du Roi, see (...)

23Réaumur’s work attracted an extraordinary attention from the public. He not only interested naturalists but also addressed philosophy and attracted the attention of all those who focused on intelligence and its laws. When Buffon’s work29 was published, it was noticed that there was a certain tendency to depreciate the instinct of insects that Réaumur had shared. The journalists of Trévoux30 particularly attacked our great entomologist in striking bad faith but he always answered with accuracy and dignity. We will see that Buffon, in his Traité des Animaux,31 represents the industry of insects as the result of a mechanical action, a mutual impulse. His ideas on this subject are obscure. He attempts to prove that the hexagonal shape of bee cells is produced by their mutual compression, that the cells are initially round then take the shape of hexagonal prisms when attempting to expand. He compares them to hair, which inflated by hot water, mechanically affect each other and take the shape of a polyhedron. This explanation is not acceptable. Bees start by making rhombus on which they build successive layers. They are not placed inside the cells they build but outside. A single bee does not build a single cell; each one works on several cells. The instinct of bees in particular, and the instinct of other insects in general, is singular and was the subject of remarkable thoughts. I will take the opportunity to present my own on the subject.

  • 32 [A man named Pellisson, holding an office under the government of Louis XIV, was sentenced to five (...)

24The word instinct means different things. Usually, animal instinct is assumed to be a capacity more or less similar to reasoning, a sort of intelligence of inferior order. It is certain that animals close to us in morphology, and even those further away, possess some abilities similar to a certain point to ours. They improve through experience, like us, even if they do not go as far. We know that a horse is trained to obey and perform difficult things that may lead to think it is more intelligent than it really is. We also know that castigating a dog diverts it from its natural inclinations and how it can be trained to hunt for its master the game it normally would have hunted to eat. Birds, that owe a lot to nature, also learn from man: they are taught to perform more or less difficult actions that are obviously not the result of blind impulse but of knowledge acquired through experience, from which they confusedly draw conclusions to guide them. This is noticed for animals inferior to birds, as insects can also be tamed. Everyone knows the story of Pelisson, who, locked at the Bastille, habituated a spider to come when called.32 Animals, even those that seem the furthest to us in morphology and in the ordinary use of their abilities, can draw some conclusions from the observation of facts. They can be compared to the child who cannot express general ideas with signs. The child is reduced to a confused conception of the relationships between things, and as long as he is in this state, there is not much difference between him and animals.

25But it is not this degree of intelligence that should be called instinct. In its true meaning, this word means the principle of actions determined in the animal, irrespective of any acquired knowledge, irrespective of experience, irrespective of any feeling that would make such actions immediately pleasant or useful, but calculated either for the conservation of the individual or the species. For example, it is obvious that mason bees do not learn by experience how to build their cells. If isolated individuals are taken that were never in touch with others, they will perform the same works, the same operations as their fellow individuals without ever learning anything from them. It is clear that these actions contain something particular and different from ordinary intelligence, even more so as most actions are so complicated, so artistic that man himself would be challenged to imitate them. Bee cells are of this nature: their hexagonal shape saves the largest quantity of substance and biggest space. This truth was discovered when geometricians perfected infinitesimal calculation.

26I only mention mason bees because the nature of their impulse is clearer and more obvious than for other bees. But I could cite thousands of examples showing that an insect does exactly the same as its parents even if it is impossible that it communicated with them or even had a glimpse of the material it would have to use.

  • 33 [Umbellifers, members of the Umbelliferae (or Apiaceae), commonly known as the carrot or parsley f (...)
  • 34 [Cruciferous plants, widely cultivated vegetables of the family Brassicaceae (or Cruciferae), cont (...)

27I already talked about flies that kill caterpillars to put them in the nest to feed their young. Crabs, small black and yellow insects that feed on flower sap and found on umbellifers,33 have the same characteristic. After mating and at the moment of laying its eggs, the female searches along a bank for a spot where the earth is soft and fresh. It digs a hole of a defined depth, making a vertical opening and gathers or sticks some earth at the edge of the hole. Then, it looks for a small green caterpillar living on cabbage and other cruciferous plants.34 Yet, it never saw and was not aware of this caterpillar as it lived on flowers, in a different spot. It stings the animal to deprive it of its strength but not to kill it. Then it rolls it up and sticks it in the hole where it laid its eggs. This insect gathers up to twelve caterpillars, the number defined for its species. Other wasps gather more. The number of caterpillars for food is always proportional to the size of the insect. Once the female has laid its eggs and placed the caterpillars it stung, it covers the hole. An egg hatches, a worm appears that eats up the first caterpillar above him, then the second, the third, etc., up to the last one near the mouth of the hole. The animal when close to its metamorphosis, spins a cocoon, and transforms into a chrysalis, an immobile one for this species. Finally, it gets out of the hole in its insect stage.

28All individuals of this species were locked and fed in a completely dark hole where they could not have been aware of nature outside or communicated with anything else than their small caterpillars. However, they copy exactly the same acts as their parents without learning anything from them. I can say the same about a hundred other species of insects. The carpenter bee, the mason bee, all insects laying their eggs in plants also select, without ever missing, the appropriate ones for their larvae. It often happens that the substance for feeding a larva is different from the one for the fully formed insect. Therefore, the taste of insects is not determined by the choice of plants on each they lay their eggs. Butterflies for instance only feed on flower sap while their caterpillars feed on leaves. They have a proboscis to suck up the sap; caterpillars have strong jaws to rip and eat the leaves. In short, there is no analogy between the insect food and the food of its young at the larva stage. However, once the moment to lay eggs arrives, the female, who fed on a given substance, lays its eggs on a corpse, a very different putrid matter but always adequate for the larva. From all these actions, some of which are very complicated as for carpenter bees, it is obvious that there is an impulsive principle completely different from the principle acting inside us and causing our reasoning and our experience. It should be mentioned also that such actions are not meant for the pleasure of the insect, not even for its immediate conservation, but for its posterity or sometimes even the posterity of its society, as seen in neutral and worker bees that build cells and gather honey without reproducing and ever being able to reproduce because they are infertile.

  • 35 [Charles-Georges Leroy or Le Roy (born 22 January 1723, Paris; died 11 November 1789, Paris), a Fr (...)
  • 36 [Hermann Samuel Reimarus (born 22 December 1694, Hamburg; died 1 March 1768, Hamburg), a German ph (...)
  • 37 Mr. [Marie Jean Pierre] Flourens [a French physiologist, the founder of experimental brain science (...)

29I reiterate that there is an impulse of superior nature continuously influencing the animal, irrespective of pleasure or pain and it is this impulse that I call “instinct.” Réaumur gives a remarkable history of it. We will talk again about it when we get to the works of Leroy,35 Reimarus,36 and others who worked on instinct. This principle does not exist for all species, and animals with the most intelligence often have the least instinct.37 In our next meeting, we will continue the history of works related to insects.

Notes

1 [Charles-Jean-François Hénault (born 8 February 1685, Paris; died 24 November 1770, Paris), a French writer and historian, perhaps best known for his two-volume history of France from the earliest times to the death of Louis XIV (Nouvel abrégé chronologique de l’histoire de France contenant les événements de notre histoire depuis Clovis jusqu’à la mort de Louis XIV, les guerres, les batailles, les sièges, les traités de paix, nos lois principales, les Édits importants et quelques Conciles etc., Paris: Prault Père, 1744, viii + 417 p., in-8°), but it is said to contain nothing new or original; a two-volume edition was published in 1749.]

2 [Philippe II, Duke of Orleans, see Lesson 1, note 36, above.]

3 [The Royal and Military Order of Saint Louis, a military Order of Chivalry founded on 5 April 1693 by Louis XIV and named after Saint Louis (Louis IX; see Volume 1, Lesson 22, note 32). It was intended as a reward for exceptional officers, and is notable as the first decoration that could be granted to non-nobles. It is a predecessor of the presentday Légion d’honneur, although the latter is now awarded to military personnel and civilians alike.]

4 [François-David Hérissant (born 29 September 1714, Rouen; died 21 August 1773, Paris), a French anatomist and naturalist and a member of the French Academy of Sciences who concerned himself with animal vocalization, especially in birds and mammals, presenting in 1753 a paper entitled “Recherches sur les organes de la voix des quadrupèdes, et de celle des oiseaux”, Mémoires de l’Académie des Sciences de Paris, 1753, pp. 279-295.]

5 [Mathurin Jacques Brisson, see Lesson 18, note 28, above.]

6 [Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire des insectes, Paris: De l’Imprimerie Royale, 1734-1742, 6 vols: vol. 1, Sur les chenilles et les papillons, 1734, 654 p., 50 pls; vol. 2, Suite de l’histoire des chenilles et des papillons et l’histoire des insectes ennemis des chenilles, 1736, 514 p., 38 pls; vol. 3, Histoire des vers mineurs des feuilles, des teignes, des fausses teignes, des pucerons, des ennemis des pucerons, des faux pucerons et l’histoire des galles des plantes et de leurs insectes, 1737, 532 p., 478 pls; vol. 4, Histoire des gallinsectes, des progallinsectes et des mouches à deux ailes, 1738, 636 p., 44 pls; vol. 5, Suite de l’histoire des mouches à deux ailes et histoire de plusieurs mouches à quatre ailes, savoir des mouches à scies, des cigales et des abeilles, 1740, 728 p., 44 pls; vol. 6, Suite de l’histoire des mouches à quatre ailes avec un supplément des mouches à deux ailes, 1742, 608 p., 48 pls.]

7 [Three metamorphic states of an insect: egg, larva, and adult.]

8 [Processionary caterpillars, caterpillars that move and reach by forming long, over-the-surface, head-to-tail processions, and which are among the most destructive of forest insects, capable of defoliating vast tracts of trees during their episodic population surges. Among the most social of caterpillars, sibling groups stay together throughout the larvae stage, often pupating side by side, forming tight masses of developing larvae and young adults, as many as 300 at a time, that enclose themselves within elaborate webs of silk, for which reason they are often referred to as tent caterpillars.]

9 [Ichneumons, members of the parasitoid wasp family Ichneumonidae of the order Hymenoptera. Important parasitoids of other invertebrates, they are common hosts of the larvae and pupae of beetles, moths and butterflies, and bees and other wasps.]

10 [Leaf miners, insects, the larvae of which live in and eat the leaf tissue of plants. The vast majority of leaf-mining insects are moths, sawflies (a kind of wasp), and flies, although some beetles also exhibit this behavior.]

11 [Caddis flies, small moth-like insects, closely related to moths and butterflies, characterized by having two pairs of hairy, scale-covered membranous wings. They have aquatic larvae, many species of which use silk to make protective cases of gravel, sand, twigs or other debris, and which are found in a wide variety of habitats such as streams, rivers, lakes, ponds, spring seeps, and temporary waters.]

12 [Hemerobiid, an insect of the brown lacewing family Hemerobiidae of the order Neuroptera, characterized by having gauzy wings, and larvae that feed on insect pests such as aphids.]

13 [Plant galls, abnormal outgrowths of plant tissues, similar to benign tumors or warts in animals. Caused by various parasites, from fungi and bacteria, to insects and mites, they are often highly organized structures and, because of this, the cause of the gall can often be determined without the actual agent being identified. This applies particularly to some insect and mite plant galls.]

14 [The rose gall, pincushion gall, or moss gall develops as a chemically induced distortion of an unopened leaf axillary or terminal bud, mostly on field rose (Rosa arvensis) or dog rose (Rosa canina) shrubs, caused by the parthenogenetic hymenopteran gall wasp (Diplolepis rosae), females of which lay up to 60 eggs within each leaf bud.]

15 [Cochineal, see Volume 2, Lesson 4, note 63.]

16 [Kermes, a red dye derived from the dried bodies of females of scale insects of the genus Kermes, primarily Kermes vermilio. Native to the Mediterranean region where it lives on the sap of the Kermes oak, it was used as a red dye by the ancient Greeks and Romans. Producing a rich red, with good color fastness, it was much esteemed in the medieval era for dyeing silk and wool. It is no longer in use today.]

17 [Sawflies or wood wasps, insects belonging to suborder Symphyta of the order Hymenoptera, distinguishable from most other hymenopterans by the broad connection between the abdomen and the thorax, and by their caterpillar-like larvae. The common name comes from the saw-like appearance of the ovipositor, which the females use to cut into the plants where they lay their eggs. Large populations of certain sawfly species can cause substantial economic damage to forests and cultivated plants.]

18 [Cicada, any of some 1,300 species of insects of the superfamily Cicadoidea, order Hemiptera, widely distributed around the world in temperate to tropical climates, and well known for their exceptionally loud song, produced not by stridulation, but by rapidly vibrating drum-like tymbals. They typically live in trees, feeding on sap and laying their eggs in a slit in the bark. Most cicadas are cryptic, singing at night to avoid predators. The periodic cicadas spend most of their lives as underground nymphs, emerging only after 13 or 17 years, most likely to reduce losses by satiating their predators.]

19 Only the male has the musical organ. [M. de St.-Agy]

20 [Cerambyx, a genus of beetles of the family Cerambycidae (collectively known as the longhorn beetles or capricorn beetles) containing approximately 30 species, characterized by having strong, stout, curved antennae, each segment of which flares towards the tip, reminiscent of the horns of the capricorn, the Alpine Ibex (Capra ibex).]

21 [Aristotle, see Volume 1, Lessons 7 and 8.]

22 [Jan Swammerdam, see Volume 2, Lesson 16, note 50.]

23 [Mason bee, a common name for species of bees of the genus Osmia, of the family Megachilidae, named for their habit of constructing compartments of mud in their nests, which are made in hollow reeds or holes in wood made by wood-boring insects.]

24 [Carpenter bee, a common name for some 500 species of large bees of the genus Xylocopa, of the subfamily Xylocopinae, named for the behavior of nearly all species to build their nests in burrows in dead wood, bamboo, or structural timbers.]

25 [Abraham Trembley, see Volume 2, Lesson 15, note 61.]

26 [The seventh volume of Réaumur’s Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire des insectes was published posthumously in two parts, the “History of Ants” published in 1928 and the “History of Beetles” published in 1955, both edited by Paul Le Chevalier: Histoire des fourmis [intr. by Bouvier E. L.; annotated by Pérez Charles], Paris: 1928, 116 p., [3] leaves of pls (Encyclopédie Entomologique. Série A. Travaux généraux; 11.); Histoire des scarabées [intr. by Caullery Maurice; annotated by Lesne Pierre & Picard F.], Paris: 1955, 340 p., 21 leaves of pls (Encyclopédie Entomologique. Série A. Travaux généraux; 32).]

27 [Jean-Baptiste Huzard, see Lesson 15, note 104, above.]

28 [Institut de France, see Lesson 8, note 78, above.]

29 [Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, see Volume 1, Lesson 7, note 39; and Volume 2, Lesson 4, note 31.]

30 [A reference to the Journal de Trévoux, formally the Mémoires pour l’Histoire des Sciences & des Beaux-Arts, but often called the Mémoires de Trévoux, was an influential academic journal that appeared monthly in France between January 1701 and December 1782. The journal published critical reviews of contemporary books and papers on a broad range of subjects, mostly non-fiction. Most of the authors were members of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), although they played down their connection with the order. However, when it came to questionsof religion, morality or politics they did not attempt to remain neutral.]

31 [Buffon’s Histoire Naturelle, générale et particulière, avec la description du Cabinet du Roi, see Volume 1, Lesson 7, note 39.]

32 [A man named Pellisson, holding an office under the government of Louis XIV, was sentenced to five years’confinement in the Bastille. During his imprisonment, Pellisson, who knew the value of time and could not remain idle, occupied himself in reading and writing; and frequently, as a kind of relief from study, he would play on the flute. On these occasions he often observed that a large spider, which had made its web in a corner of the room, came out of its hole, seemingly to listen to the music. Pellisson, to encourage it, would continue to play, and at last the insect became so familiar that it would approach him and feed in his hand. The circumstance having come to the knowledge of the jailers, they felt bound to tell the governor of the Bastille, who was a man incapable of pity. Determined to deprive the prisoner of his insect-friend, the governor went to his cell and said, “Well, Mr. Pellisson, I hear you have found a companion.” “It is true,” replied he; “and although we cannot converse, we understand each other very well.” “But I can hardly believe what I have been told,” said the governor, “and I should like to be convinced of the truth.” Pellisson, not suspecting any bad intention, immediately called the spider, which came and fed in his hand, and allowed itself to be caressed. The governor, watching an opportunity, brushed it off, and, crushing it under his foot, left the room without saying a word.]

33 [Umbellifers, members of the Umbelliferae (or Apiaceae), commonly known as the carrot or parsley family, aromatic plants with hollow stems, including a host of well-known species, such as angelica, anise, caraway, carrot, celery, coriander, cilantro, cumin, dill, fennel, hemlock, Queen Anne’s lace, parsley, parsnip, and sea holly.]

34 [Cruciferous plants, widely cultivated vegetables of the family Brassicaceae (or Cruciferae), containing many genera, species, and cultivars raised for food production such as cauliflower, cabbage, garden cress, bok choy, broccoli, brussels sprouts, and similar green-leaf vegetables.]

35 [Charles-Georges Leroy or Le Roy (born 22 January 1723, Paris; died 11 November 1789, Paris), a French naturalist, philosopher, and man of letters, the author of one of the first books on animal behavior: Lettres philosophiques sur l’intelligence et la perfectibilté des animaux, avec quelques lettres sur l’homme, Nuremberg: [s. n.], 1768.]

36 [Hermann Samuel Reimarus (born 22 December 1694, Hamburg; died 1 March 1768, Hamburg), a German philosopher and writer of the Enlightenment who is remembered for his Deism, the doctrine that human reason can arrive at a knowledge of God and ethics from a study of nature and our own internal reality, thus eliminating the need for religions based on revelation.]

37 Mr. [Marie Jean Pierre] Flourens [a French physiologist, the founder of experimental brain science and a pioneer in anesthesia —through the study of ablations on animals, he was the first to prove that the mind was located in the brain, not the heart— born 13 April 1794, Maureihan, France; died 6 December 1867, Montgeron, France], permanent secretary of the Academy of Sciences, teaches in the lecture on comparative physiology that he gives each year at the Jardin du Roi that: 1) animal instinct lies, like their intelligence, in the hemispheres of the brain; and 2) the more developed the brain hemispheres, the stronger the intelligence, while instinct obeys the reverse law, decreasing as the brain grows; the less developed the brain hemispheres, the more the instinct. If well established, these facts would mean the existence of an antipathy between instinct and intelligence. In addition, the honorable professor admits, with the candor of a true scholar, that he cannot explain why, if the intelligence increases in direct link with the development of the brain hemispheres, the instinct, which resides in the same parts of the encephalon, does not increase in the same proportion. Perhaps Mr. Flourens will be able to solve this mystery. Maybe he will be able to differentiate the part of the brain that relates to intelligence from that that relates to instinct. It is hoped by the physiologist who discovered it that 1) the cerebellum is the regulating organ of locomotion and not the seat of physical love as [Franz Josef] Gall [see Volume 2, Lesson 2, note 46] erroneously claimed —an animal from which the cerebellum was removed still demonstrated physical love once healed; 2) the various human abilities sit in the brain hemispheres and not in all parts of the encephalon as Gall also erroneously claimed, since the ablation of brain hemispheres alone removes judgment, memory, and will. I mention both discoveries by Mr. Flourens above others because they seem to me to be the most important, refuting most of Gall’s too famous system that tended to negate the independence of human willpower, and therefore to relieve man of the responsibility of his actions. [M. de St.-Agy]

Table des illustrations

Légende Caterpillars and butterflies. Original drawings by Mademoiselle Dumoustier of illustrations for the Histoire des insectes, de Mr de Réaumur, published in 6 vols, 1734-1742, tome 1. Cliché Bibliothèque centrale, MNHN.
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