14 THE WONDERS OF INSTINCT 



constructs her little earthen dome, surmounted by a short, 

 bell-mouthed neck. The Common Wasp and the Polis- 

 tes ^ are my dinner-guests : they visit my table to see if 

 the grapes served are as ripe as they look. 



Here surely — and the list is far from complete — is 

 a company both numerous and select, whose conversation 

 will not fail to charm my solitude, if I succeed in draw^- 

 ing it out. My dear beasts of former days, my old 

 friends, and others, more recent acquaintances, all are 

 here, hunting, foraging, building in close proximity. 

 Besides, should we wish to vary the scene of observation, 

 the mountain ^ is but a few hundred steps away, with 

 its tangle of arbutus, rock-roses and arborescent heather ; 

 with its sandy spaces dear to the Bembeces ; with its marly 

 slopes exploited by different Wasps and Bees. And that 

 is why, foreseeing these riches, I have abandoned the 

 town for the village and come to Serignan to weed my 

 turnips and water my lettuces. 



Laboratories are being founded at great expense, on 

 our Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts, where people cut 

 up small sea-animals, of but meager interest to us; they 

 spend a fortune on powerful microscopes, delicate dissect- 

 ing-instruments, engines of capture, boats, fishing-crews, 

 aquariums, to find out how the yolk of an Annelid's ^ 

 egg is constructed, a question whereof I have never yet 

 been able to grasp the full importance; and they scorn 



1 A Wasp that builds her nest in trees. — Translator's Note. 



2 Mont Ventoux, an outlying summit of the Alps, 6,270 feet high. 

 — Translator's Note. 



3 A red-blooded Worm. — Translator's Note. 



