Fabres [France]
It's mid-July, and from the meteorological point of view, midsummer has just begun; But in fact, the hot weather came faster than the calendar, and it has been extremely hot for several weeks.
The village is celebrating the National Day tonight, and the children are jumping around the happy bonfire, when the fire shines on the church bell tower. When the drums sounded solemnly with the fireworks "brush brush", I was alone, listening to the music of the field party in the dark corner while the weather was cool at nine o'clock in the evening; This harvest party is better than using gunpowder in the village square at this time.
Bonfires, paper lanterns, and especially the festivals celebrated by inferior shochu are even more solemn. They are beautiful and simple, quiet and powerful.
The night is deep and cicadas are no longer singing. It enjoys the sunshine and heat during the day and sings all day. When night comes, it's time to have a rest, but its rest is often disturbed. In the dense branches of the buttonwood tree, suddenly there came a short and sharp cry, which was the desperate cry of cicadas caught by the fierce and fierce hunter green slugs during a quiet rest at night. Guoguo pounced on it, grabbed its waist, cut open its belly and dug out its intestines. Music and dancing are followed by killing.
I have never seen, and will never see, the highest form of celebrating the National Day-the Longxiang military parade, but I am not very sorry about it. These can be seen in newspapers, which will provide pictures of the parade ground.
I will see the square is a mess, and there are red cross flags everywhere, which say "military ambulance" and "civilian ambulance"; There will be broken bones to be picked up, heatstroke to be treated and death to be mourned in the square. These are all expected and included in the plan.
Even in our quiet village, I bet that the festival would not end without the seasoning of fighting. It seems that in order to appreciate happiness better, we must add painful pigments.
I stay away from noise to listen and meditate. While the cicada was struggling, the party on the sycamore tree branch continued. However, the chorus has changed, and now it's the turn of the night artist. People with keen hearing can hear grasshoppers whispering among the green leaves in the jungle. The grasshopper's chirp is very similar to the sound of a pulley, which is very unattractive, like a faint sound from a shriveled film. In this dumb and continuous bass, from time to time, there is a very urgent, almost metallic crisp sound, which is Guo Guoer's singing, with silent intervals between songs and backup singers.
Although the bass of the chorus was strengthened, the concert was not excellent, but it was very general. Although there are more than a dozen slugs singing in my ear, their voices are not strong, and not all the old eardrums in my ear can capture this weak voice. However, when frogs and other insects in the field were temporarily quiet, the ditty I could hear was very soft, which complemented the quiet atmosphere in the boundless night. Green owl, my dear, if you play the piano louder, then you are a better singer than a hoarse cicada. However, in the north of our country, people let cicadas usurp your name and reputation!
However, you can never compare with your neighbor. He rang the doorbell kindly. It jingled under the buttonwood tree; You singing in the trees. Among the amphibians in the barren stone garden, it is the smallest, but it is the best at exploring.
In the dark night, when I was walking and thinking in the bare stone garden, I don't know how many times I met! Something is running around at my feet. Are the leaves blown by the wind? No, it's a little toad. I just interrupted its journey. It hurriedly hid under a stone, a clod and a sokcho to calm its excitement, and then it rang like a bell.
On this night of national celebration, there are more than a dozen clock toads around me, each singing more happily than the other. Most of the stiff silkworms huddled in the middle of the flowerpot, lined up in a row, forming a vestibule in front of my house. Everyone is singing, and the songs are old-fashioned. Some voices are deep and some are sharp, but they are all short and clear, deep into the ear and pure in sound quality.
The rhythm is slow, cadence, they seem to be singing old songs. This one is called "Crouch", that one has a thin throat and sings "Crick", and the third one is the tenor of this group, called "klock". In this way, just like the clock arrangement of the church bell tower in the resort, it keeps repeating: "Crucq-Crick-klock" and "Crucq-Crick-klock".
The chorus of amphibians reminds me of some kind of piano. At that time, I was six years old, and my ears began to be sensitive to beautiful sounds, and my heart was always eager to have them. This kind of piano is just a series of glass pieces of different lengths, fixed on two tight cloth belts. The cork inserted at the top of the wire is the impact bar. You might as well imagine an inexperienced person banging on the keyboard, all hands and feet, what octaves, what dissonance chords and what anti-chords are in a mess, then you have a clear concept of toad's songs.
As a song, this bell toad song is headless and lifeless; However, as a pure voice, it is really sweet. All concerts in nature are like this. Our ears heard the most beautiful sound in this concert, and then became more critical. In addition to realistic sound, we should also pursue a sense of order, which is the primary condition for beauty.
However, this soft voice is a courtship cantata, a call song that lovers sing to their girlfriends. I can usually guess the result of the concert, but I can't foresee the strange last scene of the wedding. After the wedding, the kind father Zhong Chan changed beyond recognition, and he finally left his seclusion.
It wraps its hind legs around the child and moves with a string of pear-sized eggs. The bulging luggage is wrapped around its tibia and legs and pressed on its back like a wallet. It has completely changed its appearance.
It bears such a heavy burden that it can't jump and drag itself. Where is it going? A warm and considerate father should go where his mother doesn't want to go, and go to the nearby mud, where warm water is indispensable for tadpoles to hatch and live. Love it is dark and dry, but now it faces moist and abundant sunshine; During the journey, the egg was wet, wrapped in legs and slowly matured. It moves forward piece by piece, and its lungs are full of blood. The swamp may still be far away, it doesn't matter, tenacious travelers will find it.
Finally arrived, although it hated taking a bath, it immediately threw it into the water, and the string of eggs fell off because of the friction between its legs. Now, the egg is in a suitable environment for development, and the rest will be fine naturally. After my father's diving mission was completed, he hurried home and returned to a dry place. As soon as it turned around, the little black tadpoles hatched and danced in the water; They just wait for contact with water and then break the eggshell.
Among these singers at dusk in July, if there is different music, there is only one kind of ringtone that can compete with the bell toad. This is a night bird of prey with long ears, and it is called "Little Duke". This little guy has golden eyes and elegant appearance. It has two feather tentacles on its forehead, so it is called "horned owl" by locals. Its songs are boring, but they are loud. In the dead of night, this song alone can resound through the night sky. This bird sings its cantata to the moon for hours, always making the sound of "Go to Europe-Go to Europe", with the same beat.
At this time, people shouted happily, and a bird was scared to leave the buttonwood tree in the square. It came to ask me to receive it. I heard it singing at the top of the cypress tree, interrupting the chaotic chorus of Guoguo and Jingchan with its own uniform movement, and its singing overwhelmed all lyric songs.
From other places, it sounds like a cat meowing, which is in contrast with this soft music from time to time. This is the courtship call of pallas's brooding birds and common owls. It squats in the hole of the olive tree all day and sings at night. It went up and down like a swing, and came to the old pine tree in the barren stone garden from a nearby place, adding its cat-like dissonance to the field concert, but its cry was weaker because of the distance.
In all this noise, the voice of the green grasshopper is too thin to hear clearly; Only when it's quiet around me can I hear a burst of subtle voices. Its vocal organ is just a small dulcimer with a scraper; Blessed people have bellows, which can send out vibrating airflow with their lungs. In fact, there is no comparability between the two. I'd better go back to insects.
There is an insect, although small, but equipped with a sheepskin drum, singing lyric songs far more than slugs at night. This is a pale and thin Italian cricket. It is so delicate that people are afraid to grab it and crush it. When fireflies lit blue lanterns to add atmosphere to the party, Italian crickets came from all directions to join the chorus on rosemary.
This exquisite instrument player has thin and big wings, shining like mica. With its withered wings, its voice is loud enough to drown out the monotonous and melancholy singing of toad, which is similar to that of ordinary black crickets, but its piano is louder and more vibrato. However, the real cricket is a chorus member in spring and disappears in hot season. People who don't know will inevitably confuse them. With its elegant violin sound, it is a more elegant and worthy of special study. I will come back to discuss this problem at an appropriate time.
If it is limited to outstanding people, then these are the main chorus members of this concert: trombone sings sad love songs alone, bell toad rings the bell of sonata, Italian cricket plays the e string of violin, and green cricket seems to knock on a small triangle.
Today, we celebrate a new era marked by the fall of the Bastille in politics, which is full of noise rather than faith; Insects don't care about human affairs. They are celebrating the sun festival. They sang about the happiness of life and cheered for the hot summer days.
What does it have to do with human beings and their fickle happiness? For whom, for what, for what idea, will our firecrackers make a crackling sound? It would be clever of anyone to tell me why. Customs are changing, which brings us unexpected things. Ambitious fireworks for those who were hated yesterday and become idols today, clusters of sparks bloom in the air, and tomorrow it will rise to the sky for another person.
A century or two later, will people talk about taking the Bastille except the learned? This is very doubtful. We will have other happiness and other troubles.
Let's look to the future. Everything seems to indicate that, due to the progress, one day, mankind will perish and be destroyed by excessive so-called civilization. People are too eager to be omnipotent, but as a result, they have no hope of enjoying the quiet and peaceful longevity of animals; Accompanied by slugs, trombones and other insects, the little bell toad keeps singing its old tune, but people will perish. They sang on the earth before us, and they will sing after we die:
Sing the eternal sun, sing the brilliance of the sun.
Don't linger on festivals, I'd better be a naturalist eager to know the private lives of insects. Green slugs seem to be rare near my home. Last year, I planned to study this insect, but I got nothing from hunting. I had to ask the ranger for help. He sent me a pair of green slugs in laguardia Plateau. The plateau was very cold, and beech began to climb tens of thousands of mountains.
Fate smiles playfully at the persevering. I found nothing last year. This year, I don't have to walk out of the narrow and barren stone garden. I can find as many as I want. I heard them chirping everywhere in the grass. Take advantage of this unexpected gain. Maybe time will never come again.
At the beginning of June, I caught many male and female slugs and put them in a metal net cover. The pottery bowl was covered with a layer of fine sand. Guoguoer looks very beautiful, green all over, with two pale white ribbons tied around her. She has a beautiful figure, slim and well-proportioned, and her two big wings are as light as gauze, which can be regarded as the most beautiful owl. I am very satisfied with the insects I caught. What will they tell me? Wait patiently, I must raise them now.
As for food, I have the same trouble as feeding cats. According to the general eating habit of ORTHOPTERA insects chewing grass, I gave lettuce leaves to these prisoners. They ate, but they ate very little and didn't like it. I soon realized that I was traveling with some vegetarians from ungodly, and I had to find another food. They may want fresh meat, but what is it? I learned it by accident.
Early in the morning, I was walking in front of the door, and suddenly something fell from the buttonwood next to me, making a harsh squeak. I ran over there. I saw a slug chewing the cicada's stomach in despair. It's no use crying and struggling. GuoGuoEr took a bite, put his head into the cicada's belly, and took it out in small bites.
I see, this battle took place in a tree. It happened in the early morning when cicadas were still walking. The unfortunate cicada was killed alive and jumped with a jerk. The attacker and the victim fell from the tree together. Since then, I have witnessed the same massacre many times.
I even saw slugs bravely jump up and chase cicadas, while cicadas flew in panic and ran away, just like an eagle chasing a lark in the air; But this carnivorous bird is not as good as an insect. It attacks things weaker than it. However, Suzy attacked a powerful monster much bigger than herself. There is no doubt about the result of this close combat. With its powerful jaws and sharp pliers, slugs rarely have to gut prisoners, while cicadas have no weapons and can only whine and kick.
The key to hunting is to catch cicadas firmly, which is quite easy when cicadas are half asleep and half awake at night. Any cicada will die tragically if it meets a fierce slug patrolling at night. This is why in the dead of night, the cymbals have long been silent, and sometimes the trees suddenly make a piercing sound. The robber dressed in light green just caught the sleeping cicada.
The boarders' food was found in the net cover, and I fed them cicadas. They ate this dish with relish. In two or three weeks, the net cover was full of skulls and sternum, torn wings and broken limbs, and their stomachs were eaten. The belly is a good part, although there is not much meat, it seems to be particularly delicious; Because in this part, in the crops, there is a pile of syrup that cicadas suck from twigs with their beaks. Cicada's belly is more popular than other parts. Is it because of this sweet food? That's about it.
In order to change the pattern of food, I also ate some sweet fruits: some pears, some grapes and some watermelons. They all like it very much. Like the British, green grasshoppers like to eat bloody steak with sauce. Perhaps this is why it eats its stomach first after catching cicadas, because it has both meat and sugar.
However, cicada slough with sugar can't be eaten anywhere. In the north, there are many green slugs, but they can't find their favorite dishes here, so they have to eat something else.
To prove this, I gave them a hairy beetle. This bug in summer is equal to the gill beetle in spring. For COLEOPTERA insects, they accepted it without hesitation and only ate COLEOPTERA wings, heads and feet. I gave them beautiful fleshy pine-gill scarabs, and they liked them very much. The next day, I saw that this fat food was eaten by this group of experts who dismembered livestock.
These examples provide a lot of information. Guo Er likes eating insects very much, especially those without too hard armor. It likes meat very much, but it doesn't only eat meat like the nun mantis. After eating meat and blood, Tu Da of cicada also eats sweet pulp of fruit, sometimes it is not delicious, and even eats a little grass.
The phenomenon of cannibalism also exists in Guoguoer. It is true that in the net cover, I have never seen the cruelty of a nun killing her sister and devouring her husband like a mantis, but if a slug dies, the living will never miss the opportunity to taste its corpse, just like eating ordinary prey. They are not companions who died because of lack of food. In addition, all those who carry knives show this hobby to varying degrees, and eat injured companions to enrich themselves.
This aside, in the net, the grasshoppers are very peaceful with each other, and there has never been a serious quarrel. At best, I'm a little hostile to food. I threw a pear and a slug immediately fell on it. Out of jealousy, whoever bites this delicious food will kick each other away. Selfishness is everywhere. When he was full, he gave way to another slug, and the other one became impatient at once. In this way, one by one, all slugs can taste delicious food. When the crops are full, it scratches the soles of its feet with its beak, wipes its face and eyes with its saliva-stained feet, and then grabs gauze or lies on the beach to digest food in a thoughtful manner. They rest most of the day, especially in hot weather.
In the evening, after the sun went down, they began to get excited. Around nine o'clock, the excitement reached its climax. They jumped up suddenly, climbed to the top of the net, hurried down and climbed up again. They walk around noisily, jumping around in the round net cover, eating delicious food, but they don't stop.
Some males are here, some are there, chirping aside and teasing the passing females with their tentacles. The future mother walked demurely, half holding a sharp knife. For these excited and enthusiastic males, mating is the most important thing at present. Insiders can tell at a glance.
For me, this is also the main observation. The main purpose of keeping fruit in the net is to see how common the strange mating habits revealed by the white-fronted owl are. My expectations were met, but not enough, because it was too late for me to see the final act of the wedding. Mating takes place in the dead of night or early morning.
After watching only a little, the prelude to the fruit wedding lasted for a long time. Lovers face to face, almost head to head, soft tentacles touch and explore for a long time, just like two opponents crossing fancy swords instead of doing it. The male barks from time to time, pulls his bow a few times, and then falls silent. Maybe he is too excited to go on. The clock struck eleven, but the confession of love was not over yet. Unfortunately, I was so sleepy that I had to give up watching mating.
The next morning, a strange thing hung under the spawning tube of the female slug, which once surprised me very much. This is a milky white seminal vesicle, the size of a pea, vaguely divided into some egg-shaped sacs. When the girl walked away, this thing rubbed on the ground and got some sand.
Here, I saw the last feast of my disgusting mother. Two hours later, the sperm sac was empty, and slugs ate it piece by piece; It chewed and chewed the sticky seminal vesicle for a long time and finally swallowed it all. After a while, the milky white bubbles disappeared, and they tasted with relish, leaving nothing behind.
This is an incredible thing for an alien, which is far from the customs on earth; However, after the white-fronted owl, this phenomenon appeared on grasshoppers again, and there was no change. Owl is one of the oldest animals on land. What a strange world their world is! It is speculated that this strange behavior exists in this whole class of insects. I will consult another insect with a sharp knife.
In July and August, choose distant plants and feed them with some pears and some lettuce leaves.
Male far slightly flew to one side and began to sing. Its bow is full of passion and rhythm, and its whole body is trembling. Then, there was silence. The caller and the callee walked slowly, looking a little stiff, and gradually got closer. They are face to face, silent, motionless, their tentacles swing gently, their front legs lift unnaturally, and they seem to shake hands with each other from time to time. The two bugs whispered for hours. What did they talk about? What kind of Haipu Mountain Alliance did they form? What do you mean they are winking at each other?
However, the time has not yet come. They broke up, quarreled and went their separate ways. The quarrel didn't last long. They got together again and began to express their love, but it still didn't work out. On the third day, I didn't see the end of the power of order. According to the habit of crickets, the male crickets carefully dive back under the female crickets, lie flat, and hold the ovipositor tightly as a support, and the mating is completed.
A huge sperm bag is discharged, like a milky raspberry, with large seeds. The color and shape are reminiscent of a bag of snail eggs. I saw it once on a white-fronted owl, but it was not so obvious. The same is true of green slugs. There is a shallow groove in the middle, which divides the whole seminal vesicle into two symmetrical strings, each with seven or eight balls. The two nodules on the left and right sides of the end of the ovipositor are more translucent than others and contain a bright orange-red nucleus. It is fixed by a wide rod made of transparent glue.
As soon as the sperm was in place, the emaciated male tiger ran away to find a pear, because it was exhausted by its heroic feat and needed to recover its strength. The female distant owl, on the other hand, slightly lifted its strange raspberry-like baggage half its size and hobbled lazily on the golden rotten yarn.
Two or three hours passed, and then he curled himself up in a circle and bit off a papillary sperm bag with the tip of his big jaw. Of course, he didn't bite, and he wouldn't let the contents out. It shallowly tore off the skin of the sperm bag, bit it into many small pieces, chewed it for a long time, and then swallowed it. I have been munching on small pieces all afternoon. The next day, the raspberry bag disappeared and was eaten all night.
Sometimes the ending scene is not so fast, especially not so disgusting. I have recorded that there is a female distant owl, dragging a sperm bag and chewing from time to time. The ground is uneven and has just been ploughed by the tip of a knife. Rubble and clods are stuck in the raspberry-shaped bag, which greatly increases the weight of the burden, while the female doesn't care at all about being away from the owl.
Sometimes the transportation is so hard that the bag can't be dragged with a piece of soil. Although it tried desperately to pull out the pouch, it did not break away from the support point under the ovipositor; The pouch is firmly adhered.
All night, the female distant owl lingers on the metal net and the ground with a worried look, but more often, it stops and does not move. The bag has shrunk a little, but the volume has not been significantly reduced. Mother didn't bite like she did at first, she just bit off the surface.
The next day, things didn't make any progress. On the third day, everything was the same, but the bag was flatter, but the two red dots were almost as bright as at the beginning. After 48 hours of adhesion, the female does not struggle from the beetle, and the nursing bag falls off on its own.
The contents of the bag have been poured out, and now this shriveled, wrinkled and deformed thing, thrown on the road, will become the trophy of ants sooner or later. In other cases, I saw that Li loved this food so much. Why should I throw it away today? Maybe it's because the wedding banquet has too much gravel and tastes bad.
Another kind of owl, with a Turkish machete bent like a sickle, is called the sickle tree owl, which partially compensates for my owl. I have seen it many times, and its machete has a reproductive appendage at the end, but every time the conditions are not sufficient to make a comprehensive observation. This translucent egg-shaped bag, three or four millimeters in size, hangs on a crystal belt, and its neck is almost as long as the protruding part. He didn't touch the bag, but let it lose moisture and dry on the spot.
Let's call it a day. Five examples provided by white-fronted owl, alpine owl, grasshopper, rattan owl and sickle owl prove that owl insects, like centipedes and octopuses, are representatives of ancient habits. It has preserved precious specimens of strange reproductive behavior in ancient times for us.
/baike/ other /kcj/