Part II Chapter 8 Doctor Dolittle's Garden by Hugh Lofting
A LIFETIME OF TWENTY-FOUR HOURS
At the conclusion of the water beetle's story the Doctor, as he had done with the other insects, put many questions to him by which he hoped to get some practical natural history out of his strange tale.
"Could you describe to me," he asked, "the appearance of that duck that carried you abroad on his feet?"
Thereupon the bettle told us what he remembered of this species of wild fowl which regularly visited his native pond-a splash of pink on the cheeks; grey wing feathers, etc.
When he had done the Doctor muttered to me:
"It wasn't a duck at all, Stubbins, I fancy. Sounds to me much more like one of the rarer geese. I had suspected that the feet of a duck could hardly accommodate a cake of mud big enough to carry him without discomfort. I think I know the bird he means. Only visits certain parts of England in the early Fall. Now we'll see what we can find out about the geography of the trip."
John Dolittle then asked him certain things about the winds on the voyage, the appearance of the islands the birds flew over, and of the coast line down which they travelled before they reached their final destination.
The beetle's answer to these questions seemed to please the Doctor a great deal. For before they were ended he suddenly grabbed me by the arm and said:
"It's Northern Brazil, Stubbins. I'm sure of it. This is quite valuable information. I had often wondered how that species got out on to the American side. Everything points to it: the bird that carried him, the islands, the coast line—everything. This will complete a very important chapter in my pamphlet. My gracious, if I could only train some of those insects to note the things I wanted to know! The whole trouble is of course that they only observe those things that are of value to themselves. But maybe—er—perhaps later on—"
He paused, silent.
"Why, Doctor," I laughed, "are you going to make naturalists out of beetles now?"
"If I only could," he replied quite seriously. "For mark you, Stubbins, there are many things in natural history that only a beetle gets the chance to observe."
After he had thanked the water beetle for his kind services we carried him down to the old fish-pond at the bottom of the garden and let him go.
Our next experiments in insect language were extremely interesting. They were concerned with a family of flies which, John Dolittle told me, were called the Ephemera. These creatures lived their whole life circle within the space of one day.
"I am very anxious, Stubbins," said he as we were beginning, "to learn what it feels like to be born, live a whole life and pass away, all in twenty-four hours. A dog lives from ten to twenty years; men from sixty to ninety; the mountains last many thousands before they crumble away. But these little fellows are content to pack all the joys and experiences of life into twenty-four hours. Some of their philosophy, their observations, should, I think, be very valuable to us."
And so with a pale, gossamer-like, green fly on the platform of our most delicate listening-machine, we set to work. The poor little creature was already middle-aged, because he had been born early that morning and it was now two o'clock in the afternoon. He seemed very frail; and one could easily understand that so unrobust a constitution wasn't made to last very long.
We worked on him for half an hour and our results were very meagre. He had things to say, we felt sure. But it was a language new to us. Clearly anyone who has to pack his whole life into one day must talk very fast. We soon got the impression that he was really pouring out hundreds of words a second. Only we weren't catching them quick enough.
"Look here, Stubbins," said the Doctor, "we are being entirely heartless. We can't let this poor fellow spend more than half an hour talking to us. Why, half an hour out of his life is a forty-eighth part of the whole. That would be nearly eighteen months for us. What must he think of us? Imagine anyone talking to you for a year and a half without stopping! Let him go at once. We must do this on a different system. We will catch several singly and only keep them in the apparatus for five minutes at a time, If we are swift enough with our note-taking, we shall perhaps be able to gather a little from what each one says and piece it all together afterwards and make something of it."
And so by catching a number of ephemera and listening to each for a very short period we went on with our experiment.
This wasn't easy. Because not only did the kind-hearted Doctor refuse to keep his captives in the listening apparatus for more than five minutes, but he would not on any account restrict their liberty, before or after the listening experiments, for a single moment. Consequently we were obliged to go out after each specimen singly, catch it and bring it back to our work sheds with all possible speed. Fortunately at that particularly season of the year, Spring, we were able to get those flies in abundance—for a week or so anyhow.
The results of our labours after ten or twelve days were really quite good—in the circumstances. By very exhaustive and continuous work we learned to follow the extraordinary language of this species with fair ease. It was the most tiring task I think I ever did as the Doctor's secretary. The speed of the flies' statements was positively staggering. We had to invent a sort of extra-rapid short-hand of our own, in which a single sign sometimes stood for a whole sentence. After each specimen was released we went over the notes together and put them into such form as would be later understandable, while what had been said was still fresh in our memories.
This chapter in the book which John Dolittle later completed on insect language was perhaps the most interesting in the whole work. For not only had this species a tremendously swift and condensed way of speaking, but its powers of observation were correspondingly quick. In any life that lasts only twenty-four hours your impressions of this world must of course be taken in at great speed. More than that, these impressions proved to be very original—quite different from those of any class of insects which we had so far studied. I think it is safe to say that the ephemera wasted less time in forming their opinions and making their decisions than any other class of animal life.
"You know, Stubbins," said the Doctor, "it is really too bad that these creatures have not a hand in many of the affairs which we humans think we are so good at. Imagine a Cabinet Minister or the Postmaster-General making all the decisions of his whole career within twenty-four hours! I know lots of Cabinet Ministers and heads of government departments that ought to be made to try it. One thing must be said for the poor little frail ephemera: they certainly know how to make up their minds—and act—quickly."