Fabre Jean-Henri
Jean-Henri Casimir Fabre (December 22, 1823 - October 11, 1915) was a French entomologist and author. Fabre was born in Saint-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 in Carpentras whilst pursuing further studies. In 1849 he was appointed to a teaching post in Ajaccio (Corsica), then in 1849 moved on to the lycée in Avignon. Fabre went on to accomplish many scholarly achievements. He was a popular teacher, physicist, chemist 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; on the other hand he was not a Biblical creationist either but assumed a saltationist origin of biodiversity. In one of Fabre's most famous experiments, he arranged processionary caterpillars to form a continuous loop around the edge of a pot. As each caterpillar instinctively followed the silken trail of the caterpillars in front of it, the group moved around in a circle for seven days.[1] Jean-Henri Fabre's last home and office, the Harmas de Fabre 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. Fabre's insect collection is in Musée Requien Avignon.
The Mason-Bees
- Author: Fabre Jean-Henri
- Genre: General
The Mason-Bees belongs to the pen of a teacher of chemistry and physics Jean Henri Fabre whose whole life was devoted to the research of insects, especially bees, and was published for the first time in 1925. Among some other books of his it is possible to name the following: The life of the caterpillar, The life of the Spider, Animal life in field and Garden, Life of the fly and The Insect world. The main character of The Mason-Bees is an ordinary teacher who takes his students out for a field experiment to study bees. Students show a great and sincere interest in bees and this inspires the main character to do more research concerning bees including observations and experiments. And all other sections of the book are devoted to these observations and notices. The book is a must have for those readers who are interested in insects and particularly in bees.
More Hunting Wasps
- Author: Fabre Jean-Henri
- Genre: History & Philosophy
Translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
Social Life in the Insect World
- Author: Fabre Jean-Henri
- Genre: Social Sciences
Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III THE SONG OF THE CIGALE Where I live I can capture five species of Cigale, the two principal species being the common Cigale and the variety which lives on the flowering ash. Both of these are widely distributed and are the only species known to the country folk. The larger of the two is the common Cigale. Let me briefly describe the mechanism with which it produces its familiar note. On the under side of the body of the male, immediately behind the posterior limbs, are two wide semicircular plates which slightly overlap one another, the right hand lying over the left hand plate. These are the shutters, the lids, the dampers of the musical-box. Let us remove them. To the right and left lie two spacious cavities which are known in Provencal as the chapels (li capdlo). Together they form the church (la gleiso). Their forward limit is formed by a creamy yellow membrane, soft and thin; the hinder limit by a dry membrane coloured like a soap bubble and known in Provencal as the mirror (mirau). The church, the mirrors, and the dampers are commonly regarded as the organs which produce the cry of the Cigale. Of a singer out of breath one saysthat he has broken his mirrors (a li mirau creba). The same phrase is used of a poet without inspiration. Acoustics give the lie to the popular belief. You may break the mirrors, remove the covers with a snip of the scissors, and tear the yellow anterior membrane, but these mutilations do not silence the song of the Cigale ; they merely change its quality and weaken it. The chapels are resonators; they do not produce the sound, but merely reinforce it by the vibration of their anterior and posterior membranes; while the sound is modified by the dampers as they are opened more or less widely. The actual source of the sound is ...
The Wonders of Instinct
- Author: Fabre Jean-Henri
- Genre: Biology
The remarkable behavior of grasshoppers, beetles, bluebottles, spiders, cabbage caterpillars, and glow-worms, from the eminent French entomologist. Considered "The Homer of Insects," Fabre's work laid the foundation for virtually all subsequent work in the field of entomology. Jean-Henri Fabre (1823-1915) is well known for his popularization of insect natural history, especially in the ten volumes of Souvenirs Entomoligiques. Although a reclusive amateur, with no scientific training, he was an acute observer of insect behavior. He combined his observations (most made in his own backyard) with a humanistic writing style that made his books popular, at least later in his life; during most of his life, the successive volumes of Souvenirs Entomologiques attracted only mild attention. Fabre was 84 when the last volume appeared, and soon afterward he was "discovered." He was elected to numerous scientific societies, provided a government pension, and even the President of France came to visit him. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
The Life of the fly; with which are interspersed some chapters of autobiography
- Author: Fabre Jean-Henri
- Genre: Fabre, Jean-Henri,1823-1915
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.
The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles
- Author: Fabre Jean-Henri
- Genre: Beetles
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.
Bramble-Bees and Others
- Author: Fabre Jean-Henri
- Genre: General
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.
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