Jean Henri Casimir Fabre: This is a scholar who has devoted his whole life to the study of insects

Jean Henri Casimir Fabre

This is a scholar who has devoted his whole life to the study of insects, and he is also the first human being to go deep into the insect kingdom. Insects written by him have an important position in the history of literature and the history of natural science and are known as the Epic of the Insect World. He is Jean Henri Casimir Fabre, a famous French entomologist, writer, and animal behaviorist.

With insects as companions throughout his life, he carefully observed the living habits of insects, not only accumulating a wealth of first-hand information but also revealing the little-known living habits of insects. He eulogizes these little lives in prose, records the habits of insects and the struggle for survival and reproduction in a relaxed and humorous style, and the words are filled with praise for all things. Reading these proses makes people unconsciously awaken their original innocence, arouse people's love for life, promote people's unlimited imagination, and penetrate the world of insects to understand social life. Fabre's masterpieces with profound charm have become masterpieces handed down from generation to generation.

On December 22, 1823, Fabre was born in a farmer's family in the village of St. Leon in the Lunag Mountains of the Avalon Province in southern France. He spent his adolescence in poverty and hardship. At the age of 14, he had to go out to make a living. He worked as a hard laborer and a lemon vendor on the railway. Although he was often hungry and kept out of the cold at night, he never stopped reading and self-study. Once fascinated by mathematics and chemistry, he later found himself more interested in biology. At the age of 19, Fabre decided to study insects. Since then, studying insects has become his life theme, pleasure, and way of life.

Fabre insisted on self-study, and successively obtained a bachelor's degree in mathematics, a bachelor's degree in natural science, a master's degree, and a doctorate. He is proficient in Latin and Greek and loves the works of the ancient Roman writer Horace and the poet Virgil, which have a profound influence on his creation. In terms of painting and watercolor, he is also self-taught. The exquisite fungi illustrations and literary works he left behind have won the praise of Nobel Prize winner and French poet Mistral.

In 1880, using the money he saved, Fabre bought a wasteland near the small town of Serignan and named it Desolate Stone Garden. There are flowers that bees love, carrion animals that flies love, cabbages that white butterflies love, and rock piles that scorpions love. Here, ants, spiders, dung beetles, all kinds of beetles, wasps, cicadas, praying mantises, and pine caterpillars abound, and Fabre built his own study, studio, and testing ground here. This remote place away from the hustle and bustle of the world has become a paradise for Fabre and insects, and it is also a place where nearby children love to come and play. Here he can not only make himself think quietly but also devote himself to the observation and experiment of insects. It has become the insect experiment base he has dreamed of in his life.

Fabre often squats tirelessly in the barren rock garden, doing insect research year after year and day after day. He observed and experimented during the day, and made experimental records and observation notes at night. In Huangshiyuan, Fabre spent 35 years of poverty, loneliness, joy, and peace, and wrote 10 volumes of manuscripts of Insects. In his works, the survival and reproduction of insects are spiritual. For him, there are no harmful insects and beneficial insects in the world, and there are no ugly, beautiful, and dirty insects. He believes that "what we call ugly, beautiful, and dirty is meaningless in nature. He also said, Needless to say, in the insect world, there should be a little innocence described the world of spiders with vivid brushwork, and also described the special behaviors of scorpions, crickets, and pine caterpillars with anthropomorphic techniques. The nests that the scumblers relentlessly build, the wisdom of orb-web spiders, the cunning of parasitic wasps, the group life of ants, the underground palaces that cicada larvae tenaciously built underground for more than ten or twenty years, and the wit of tarantulas are all written by him.

In 1910, Fabre's ten-volume Insects was published. In the preface, Fabre said with emotion,

Practicing this research is the only comfort I get in my life. After reading all over the world, I realized that insects are one of them. The most colorful group of people. Even if I get a little more strength, and maybe even a few more long lives, I can't fully understand the interest of insects. When he said this, Fabre was 87 years old and advanced age.

In November 1915, the insect giant Fabre died suddenly at the age of 93. His barren stone garden has become the Fabre Museum, which is quietly located in the Provence botanical garden with a strong French style.

A person's life is like a passing meteor, passing by in a hurry. The most commendable thing is that he can leave beautiful things for the world. Fabre has left a precious legacy for mankind. He has written 95 best-selling popular science books; for more than 100 years, his "Insects" has been translated into 13 languages, which has inspired several generations of young people to love the world. He is interested in natural science and loves biology; he is also a mycologist and painter, and he has painted more than 700 kinds of mushrooms with his own hands, Zhang Zhang is a first-class work; he also left many poems and wrote Compose music for it. After Fabre's death, descendants compiled and published many works for him, and made them spread in the world.

Fabre's works have been admired by famous literati and scholars at that time, including the British biologist Darwin, the Belgian playwright Maeterlinck who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1911, the German writer Jung, the French philosopher Bergson, and the poet Mallarmé. , Lumannier et al. Many world-renowned scholars, including the biologist Pasteur, the philosopher Mir, the politician Park Engale...etc., visited his barren stone garden in person. Fabre has multiple identities and a wide variety of works. As a naturalist, he left many treatises on animals and plants, including Thin Grass: Patents and Treatises, Animals of Avignon, Bullet, and Olive Trees. As a teacher, he has written many chemistry and physics textbooks, and many of his works have been compiled into teaching materials; as a poet, he has written many books in the Provencal language in southern France. Poetry, known as Gadfly Poet by the locals. Among the many works, the most influential is his Insects. This work not only shows his scientific research talent but also shows his literary talent. love. Although he has achieved many successes and is widely recognized by society, Fabre is as simple as ever and continues his poor life shyly.

In 1889, Fabre was awarded the Bouqi Delmont Award, the highest honor of the French Academy; in 1892 and 1894, Fabre was admitted as a member of the Belgian and French Entomological Society; Guinier Award; April 3, 1910, when Fabre was 87 years old, Fabre's friends, students, and readers held an assembly to celebrate the publication of Insects, and determined April 3, 1910, as the first Insects Fabre Day, since then Insects has become famous all over the world and won the Lei Ziwang Denur Medal again.

Fabre's research is different from orthodox insect research, or he created an alternative research method of entomology. In his words,

You disembowel insects and I study them while they are alive; you treat insects as pathetic and horrible things while I make people like them; and the corpse yard, while I observe under the blue sky, to the song of the cicadas; you test the hive and the protoplasm with reagents, while I study their instincts at their best; you investigate the death, And what I explore is life!

Mr. Lu Xun once called Insects a model for telling insect stories.