Jean Henri Fabre
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Jean-Henri Casimir Fabre (December 22, 1823 - October 11, 1915) was a French entomologist and author.
Fabre was born in St. Léons in Aveyron, France. Fabre was largely an autodidact, owing to the poverty of his family. Nevertheless, he acquired a primary teaching certificate at the young age of 19 and began teaching at the college of Ajaccio, Corsica, called Carpentras. In 1852, he taught at the lycée in Avignon.
Fabre went on to accomplish many scholarly achievements. He was a popular teacher, physicist, and botanist. However, he is probably best known for his findings in the field of entomology, the study of insects, and is considered by many to be the father of modern entomology. Much of his enduring popularity is due to his marvelous teaching ability and his manner of writing about the lives of insects in biographical form, which he preferred to a clinically detached, journalistic mode of recording. In doing so he combined what he called "my passion for scientific truth" with keen observations and an engaging, colloquial style of writing. Fabre noted, "Others again have reproached me with my style, which has not the solemnity, nay, better, the dryness of the schools. They fear lest a page that is read without fatigue should not always be the expression of the truth. Were I to take their word for it, we are profound only on condition of being obscure."
Over the years he wrote a series of texts on insects and arachnids that are collectively known as the Souvenirs Entomologiques. Fabre's influence is felt in the later works of fellow naturalist Charles Darwin, who called Fabre "an inimitable observer". Fabre, however, rejected Darwin's theory of evolution.
Jean-Henri Fabre's last home and office, the "Harmas de Sérignan" in Provence stands today as a museum devoted to his life and works.
The site of his birth, at St Léons, near Millau is now the site of Micropolis, a tourist attraction dedicated to popularising entomology and a museum on his life.
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[edit] Works
- Scène de la vie des insectes
- Chimie agricole (textbook) (1862)
- La Terre (Jean Henri Fabre)|La Terre (1865)
- Le Ciel (textbook) (1867) - Read on gallica
- Catalogue des « Insectes Coléoptères observés aux environs d'Avignon » (1870)
- Les Ravageurs (1870)
- Les Auxiliaires (1873)
- Aurore (textbook) (1874) Read on gallica
- Botanique (textbook) (1874)
- L'Industrie (textbook) (1875)
- Les Serviteurs (textbook) (1875)
- Sphériacées du Vaucluse (1878)
- Souvenirs entomologiques - 1st serie (1891) - (1879) - Read on gallica
- Etude sur les moeurs des Halictes (1879)
- Le Livre des Champs (1879)
- Lectures sur la Botanique (1881)
- Nouveaux souvenirs entomologiques - 2th serie (1882) - Read on gallica
- Lectures sur la Zoologie (1882)
- Zoologie (Jean Henri Fabre)|Zoologie (textbook) (1884)
- Souvenirs entomologiques - 3th serie (1886) - Read on gallica
- Histoire naturelles (textbook) (1889)
- Souvenirs entomologiques - 4th serie (1891) - Read on gallica
- La plante : leçons à mon fils sur la botanique (livre scolaire) (1892) - Read on gallica
- Souvenirs entomologiques - 5th serie (1897) - Read on gallica
- Souvenirs entomologiques - 6th serie (1900) - Read on gallica
- Souvenirs entomologiques - 7th serie (1901) - Read on gallica
- Souvenirs entomologiques - 8th serie (1903)
- Souvenirs entomologiques - 9th serie (1905)
- Souvenirs entomologiques - 10th serie (1909)
- Oubreto Provençalo dou Felibre di Tavan (1909)
- La Vie des insectes (1910)
- Mœurs des insectes (1911)
- Les Merveilles de l'instinct chez les insectes (1913)
- Le monde merveilleux des insectes (1921)
- Poésie françaises et provençales (1925) (final edition)
- La Vie des araignées (1928)
- J. Henri Fabre, The Life of the Grasshopper. Dodd, Mead, and company, 1917. ASIN B00085HYR4
- J. Henri Fabre, The Life of the Caterpillar. Dodd, Mead, 1919. ASIN B00089FB2A
- J. Henri Fabre, Field, Forest, and Farm: Things interesting to young nature lovers, including some matters of moment to gardeners and fruit-growers. The Century Company, 1919. ASIN B00085PDU4
- J. Henri Fabre, This Earth is Ours: Talks about Mountains and Rivers, Volcanoes, Earthquakes, and Geysers & Other Things. Albert & Charles Boni, 1923. ASIN B000EHLE22
- J. Henri Fabre, The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles. Dodd, Mead, 1924. ASIN B000882F2K
- J. Henri Fabre, (Alexander Teixeira de Mattos, translator), The Mason Bees. Garden City, 1925. ASIN B00086XXU0; Reprinted in 2004 by Kessinger Publishing; ISBN 1417916761; ISBN 978-1417916764
- J. Henri Fabre, Curiosities of Science. The Century Company, 1927. ASIN B00086KVBE
- J. Henri Fabre, (Alexander Teixeira de Mattos, translator), The Insect World of J. Henri Fabre. Introduction and Interpretive Comments by Edwin Way Teale; Foreword to 1991 edition by Gerald Durrell. Published by Dodd, Mead in 1949; Reprinted by Beacon Press in 1991; ISBN 0-8070-8513-8
- J. Henri Fabre, (Alexander Teixeira de Mattos, translator), The Life of the Spider. Preface by Maurice Maeterlinck; Introduction by John K. Terres. Published by Horizon Press, 1971; ISBN 0-8180-1705-8 (First published by Dodd, Mead, and company in 1913, ASIN B00085D6P8)
- J. Henri Fabre, (Alexander Teixeira de Mattos, translator), The Life of the Fly. Fredonia Books, 2001. ISBN 1589630262; ISBN 978-1589630260
- J. Henri Fabre, The Hunting Wasps. University Press of the Pacific, 2002. ISBN 1410200078; ISBN 978-1410200075
- J. Henri Fabre, The Wonders of Instinct: Chapters in the Psychology of Insects. University Press of the Pacific, 2002. ISBN 0898757681; ISBN 978-0898757682
[edit] Biography
- G.V. Legros, (Bernard Miall, translator), Fabre, Poet of Science. T. Fisher Unwin, 1913. (Reprinted by University Press of the Pacific, 2002, ISBN 0898759455; ISBN 978-0898759457)
- E.L. Bouvier, The Life and Work of J.H. Fabre. Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution, 1916, pages 587-597.
- Augustin Fabre, The Life of Jean Henri Fabre. Dodd, Mead, 1921.
- Percy F. Bicknell, The Human Side of Fabre. The Century Company, 1923.
[edit] Trivia
- In the OVA Read or Die, Jean-Henri Fabre, riding a giant grasshopper, is among a number of evil clones of historical and legendary figures.
- In 1956 the French post office commemorated Fabre on a well-engraved stamp. A postcard, with a portrait of him, accompanied the issue
- The renowned French Naturalist, Jean-Henri Fabre, in an experiment with processionary caterpillars was able to entice them on to the rim of a large flowerpot. Processionary caterpillars move through the forest in a long procession feeding on pine needles. They derive their name from their habit of following a lead caterpillar, each with its eyes half closed and head fitted snugly against the rear end of the preceding caterpillar.
Fabre succeeded in getting the lead caterpillar to connect up with the last one, creating a complete circle, which moved around the pot in a never ending procession. He thought that after a few circles of the pot, the caterpillars would discover their predicament or tire of their endless progression and move off in another direction. But they never varied their movements.
Through force of habit, the caterpillars kept moving relentlessly around the pot at about the same pace for a period of seven days. They would have continued even longer if they had not stopped from sheer exhaustion and hunger. As part of the experiment, food had been placed close by in sight of the group, but because it was out of the path of the circle, they continued in their procession to what could have been their ultimate destruction.link Processionary caterpillars
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