30 INSECT LIFE n 



results of which were far from what I desired. I 

 felt that I must have assistants. Just then a joyous 

 band of children were crossing the high land. It 

 was a Thursday, and oblivious of school and hated 

 lessons, an apple in one hand and a piece of bread 

 in the other, they were coming from the neighbour- 

 ing village of Les Angles and wending their way to 

 search on the bare hill where the bullets drop when 

 the garrison is shooting at a mark. A few bits of 

 lead, worth about a halfpenny, were the object of 

 this early morning expedition. 



The tiny rosy flowers of wild geranium enamelled 

 the turf which for a brief moment beautified this 

 Arabia Petrea ; the water wagtail, half black, half 

 white, uttered its scornful cry as it fluttered from 

 one point of rock to another ; on the threshold of 

 burrows, dug at the foot of tufts of thyme, the 

 field-crickets filled the air with their monotonous 

 symphony. And the children were happy in this 

 festival of spring — happier still at their prospective 

 riches — that halfpenny which they would get in 

 return for the bullets they would find, that half- 

 penny which would enable them next Sunday to 

 buy at the stall set up before the church two 

 peppermint bull's-eyes — two great bull's-eyes at a 

 farthing apiece ! 



I accosted the tallest, whose wide-awake air gave 

 me hopes of him ; the little ones formed a circle, 

 each munching his apple ; I explained the matter 

 and showed them Scarabaeus sacer rolling his ball, 

 and told them that in a like ball, buried somewhere, 

 I knew not where, a hollow is sometimes found, and 

 in this hollow a grub. The thing to be done was to 



