“Insect” is a long biological work written by French famous entomologist Fable in nearly 20 years, and it is also a great entomology work.
In the era of Faber’s life, most scholars who studied insects could not go out of the laboratory. They squatted in the laboratory to do classification and dissection. They hold a magnifying glass, dissect the body of insects, and carefully examine the body organs of insects, but do not think about the role of these organs in the daily life of insects, but rarely study the instincts and habits of insect life.
Faber is abnormal. He puts his footprints and vision into the nature of insect life. Through careful observation, he finds that this is not reasonable. Because Faber’s research is based on direct observation, he observes the life of insects in the spirit of scientific exploration in pursuit of truth.
Faber observes insects with his keen eyes, and writes the life of insects in an emotional style into “Insect Story”. For this reason, he also took a subtitle of “Insect Record”, “Research on Insect Instinct and Habit”, and proposed to observe living insects in nature and name them according to the occupation of insects, making “Insect Record” popular with readers since its inception.
Fable (1823-1915) was born in a rural family in the San Leon region of southern France. The cattle, sheep, birds, flowers, birds and cordyceps in the countryside became Faber’s best playmates in his childhood, which made him have a strong curiosity about everything in nature. He is eager to explore the mysteries contained in nature, and he wants to have his own small world of observing flowers, birds and caterpillars.
Later, Faber left the countryside and went to study in other places. Through his own efforts, he was admitted to the public student of Vokluz Normal School. After graduation, he worked as a teacher in a primary school. However, his childhood life in the countryside and the grasshopper in the countryside became his haunting memories.
After teaching, Faber devoted himself to studying insects and wrote and published a series of papers based on his direct observation. Due to the low salary of this job, Faber never got rid of the financial difficulties in his life. Only when he was in his fifties did he buy a wasteland in Provence, southeast of France, adjacent to the Mediterranean Sea, relying on his saved contributions.
Provence, the hometown of lavender, is also known as lavender garden. The air is always filled with the fragrance of lavender, thyme, pine, etc. Provence’s pleasant climate makes it a paradise for plants and insects. Perhaps Faber chose to observe insects here to fulfill his childhood dream.
In Faber’s view, although this is a barren land, it is a favorite land of lavender, cornflower and hymenoptera insects. He jokingly named it “Wild Stone Garden”. So far, he finally realized his childhood wish to have a small world to observe insects.
Faber regards the Waste Stone Garden as his home and insect laboratory, where he devotes himself to thinking, observing, experimenting and writing.
In 1879, the first volume of “Insect Record” was published, and it was praised by not only general scientists, but also psychologists, sociologists, writers and artists, and was loved by the majority of young people.
For the next 35 years, Faber lived in the Stone Garden for a long time. While observing and experimenting, he sorted out the observation notes, experimental records, experimental reports, scientific notes and other data of the first half of his life on insects, and completed the last nine volumes of Insect Record.
After decades of observation and experiment, Faber corrected some wrong ideas of some scholars about insects at that time. Faber pointed out that the so-called scorpions belong to viviparous animals, which was caused by the observation errors, which made up for the mistakes of previous scholars who mainly limited to describing the physical characteristics of insects and did not understand the life of insects, and expounded many original views.
Faber studies and writes tirelessly, and the better he writes. If we make a horizontal comparison between the first and tenth volumes of Insect Records, it is not difficult to find that the later chapters, both in terms of science and writing, have made great progress compared with the earlier ones, and the forms of expression are also more diversified and more perfect.
In 1907, when the tenth volume of The Insect was published, he was already an old man in his eighties. The success of Insect won him the reputation of “Homer of Insects” and “Poet of Science”, and his achievements were widely recognized by the society. Although Faber has won many scientific titles, he is still simple and modest, living a poor life.
In 1915, at the age of 92, Faber died and lay quietly in the Stone Garden, where there were insects he had loved all his life with sincere feelings. Insects are beautiful things that Faber has been observing and imitating tirelessly in his whole life.
In Insects, Faber not only describes the life and habits of insects he observed, but also vividly depicts the character of insects. In Faber’s eyes, entomology is not a dull science, but a fascinating science with aesthetic interest.
The aesthetic interest of Faber’s Insect Story first comes from a kind of potential childlike innocence and interest, which may be related to Faber’s rural life experience as a child, and also to his innate strong desire to explore the mysteries of nature.
The childlike mind and perspective are always accompanied by childlike values. Faber described the living habits of dozens of insects in detail, and wrote about their living, feeding, mating, childcare, work, and death.
From the perspective of children, Faber silently watched these lovely insects and naively narrated their activity tracks. From the children’s perspective, Faber combines observation with life interest, and gains a thought-provoking aesthetic feeling.
For example, when describing the food that grasshoppers like, he wrote: “In order to change the pattern of food, I gave them sweet fruit: several pears, several grapes, and several watermelons, which they all like to eat. The green grasshopper, like the British, likes to eat raw steak with jam as a seasoning. Perhaps this is the reason why it first eats the belly after catching the cicada, because the belly has both meat and sweet food.”
Another example is Faber’s description of the female flower golden turtle, He wrote: “The female flower golden turtle is not in such a hurry. But when it is dressed in colorful armor as an adult, it still uses good time to eat. As long as the weather is not too hot, all it has to do is eat jam made of apricots, pears, peaches, figs, plums and other fruits. It has been delayed by delicious food, and everything has been forgotten, so it has to postpone spawning until the next year.
This kind of fluent sentence pattern, beautiful expression, and the words of life interest and children’s character that are revealed everywhere are an interesting expression that has not lost the basic knowledge standard of entomology in the arbitrary judgment standard.
For cicadas, the academic circles at that time generally believed that male cicadas were calling for partners and would continue to sing. However, after observing and recording the life habits of cicadas for 15 years, Faber reached his own observation conclusion: cicadas’ singing has nothing to do with courtship, but a survival instinct, which is the same as that of breathing.
As described in Insect Record, cicadas work hard underground for four years and enjoy themselves in the sun for one month, which is the life span of cicadas. Let’s not blame the adult cicada for playing the song of triumph crazily, because it has lived in the dark for four years, wearing a wrinkled dirty coat. Now it suddenly puts on exquisite clothes, has wings comparable to those of birds, bathes in the warm sun, and is slightly drunk. In this world, it is extremely happy. In order to celebrate this hard-won and short-lived happiness, singing loudly can never express its joy.
Faber’s interpretation of cicadas is naturally cheerful, not oriented by human’s subjective consciousness, not pursuing precise reasons, but always seeking a child index with happiness as its value orientation. This perspective of equality with nature is the expression of an ecological view of harmonious coexistence with nature.
Faber’s conclusion is completely based on personal observation, without any ready-made theoretical evidence. It is a purely childlike, and also the most true and natural conclusion. This is an equality with nature, animals and plants, without any preconceived observation.
The Insect Record is a rigorous entomology work and a beautiful prose masterpiece. It realizes the perfect combination of science and literature, and combines rational thinking and emotional expression; The Insect Story is not as obscure and unintelligible as other scientific works, and its words are dull and uninteresting. It gives people a sense of humor when reading it, as if communicating with insects face to face.
Therefore, as soon as the book was launched, The Insect Story was immediately loved and welcomed by readers, because Faber’s original intention of writing The Insect Story was that he did not intend to write such a great entomology book as a pure academic work for the insiders, but chose to express the true details of life in prose form and simple and pure words.
However, this book is different from ordinary lyrical prose. The situation described in Insect Record is true, reliable, detailed, profound, sophisticated, fluent, simple, interesting and unique.
On the one hand, Faber used human nature to observe insect nature, and poured deep humanistic care into insects. On the other hand, he used insect nature to reflect on human life, thinking about human survival status, life attitude, values, and so on. His wise philosophy is always on the paper.
In Faber’s works, the spirituality of insects is lifelike, and a serious academic work becomes like poetry and beautiful prose. Reading Insect Record can not only gain knowledge and ideas, but also is a unique aesthetic process.
The language in “Insect Story” is beautiful, and the insects in “Insect Story” are cute, so that he is known as “insect poet”. If we can describe the insects in his eyes with the feelings of Boer’s poetic poet, then the barren stone garden where insects live is the poetic habitat of Boer.
Faber described the life of various insects in extremely detailed words in the Waste Stone Garden. After careful observation, Faber found that although the firefly has a beautiful appearance, it is a meat eater. It usually takes snails as its food. It uses its sharp and small hooks as its prey tool. It taps repeatedly on the outer membrane of the snail to transfer body fluid from the groove to the snail, making it unconscious, and the snail becomes a good meal for fireflies.
Faber also found that the light emitted by male fireflies is brighter than that of female fireflies, and the respiratory organ is its luminous organ. The light is the result of oxidation, and it shines from birth to death. However, these bright little animals have no concept of social life, even family. They lay eggs everywhere and make peace with the situation.
Fable carefully described how he and his children conquered the wasp’s nest. He praised the wasp’s pumpkin – like round nest with a warm tone. In his view, the actions of wasps often conform to the laws of physics and geometry, and they instinctively work like scientists.
Faber studied how crickets began to sing at the end of April, and its instrument was only a bow, with a hook and a vibrating membrane on the bow. He praised in poetic language: “My cricket, because I am with you, I feel the vitality of life. This is the vitality in our body. This is why I don’t look at the stars in the sky, but concentrate my attention on your nightsong.”
Fable also vividly depicts how busy the caterpillar is; How can wasps have the courage to catch poisonous spiders? Bees have extremely strict division of labor and order. They perform their respective duties. Their hives are simply the buildings built by the most outstanding geometers; How do ants get food from aphids, how do they instinctively live an organized life, and how do brave male ants go out to camp and line up to capture captives.
Faber describes insects in simple but elegant style, describes the life course and life interest of insects in rigorous but humorous language, brings readers into a colorful and interesting insect kingdom, and conveys the philosophy spirit of the whole natural ecology, as well as the lively aesthetic interest.
With respect and love for life, Faber presented the complicated insect world to people with a large number of detailed first-hand information. In Faber’s works, insect spirituality is lifelike, and the insect world has become a literary form for human beings to acquire knowledge, interest, beauty and ideas.
Faber’s “Insect Story” reveals a colorful picture of the insect world for the world with his incomparable love for the whole natural life and his meticulous observation of the insect world. His description is vivid and interesting, his thinking is deep and enlightening, and the rational light of ecological philosophy revealed in it will continue to illuminate the enthusiasm of human beings to explore the mysteries of nature.
It has been more than one hundred years since the first volume of Faber’s Insect Story was published, and it still makes people feel interesting to read it: his article is simple, meaningful and interesting, concise and concise, fascinating, and can be regarded as a model of popular science works.
Finally, please allow me to conclude this article by quoting the comments of Fujian Daily on Insect Story: Insect Story is not only a scientific masterpiece on insects, but also a magnificent poem eulogizing life. Insect Story is a poem describing the life of insects.
