274 INSECT LIFE xx 



closed. I obtained tables on which my pupils could 

 write instead of scrawling on their knees, and as 

 my class grew daily larger, it ended by being divided. 

 As soon as I had an assistant to look after the 

 younger ones, things changed for the better. 



Among the subjects taught, one pleased master 

 and pupils equally. This was out-of-door geometry, 

 practical surveying. The college had none of the 

 necessary outfit, but with my large emoluments — 

 700 francs, if you please ! — I could not hesitate as 

 to making the outlay. A measuring chain and 

 stakes, a level, square, and compass were bought at 

 my expense. A tiny graphometer, hardly bigger 

 than one's palm, and worth about 4s. 2d., was 

 furnished by the college. We had no tripod, 

 and I had one made. In short, my outfit was 

 complete. When May came, once a week the 

 gloomy class-room was exchanged for the fields, 

 and we all felt it as a holiday. There were disputes 

 as to the honour of carrying the stakes, divided 

 into packets of three, and more than one shoulder 

 as we went through the town felt glorified in the 

 sight of all by the learned burden. I myself — why 

 conceal it? — was not without a certain satisfaction 

 at carrying tenderly the most precious part of the 

 apparatus, the famous four-and-twopenny grapho- 

 meter. The scene of operations was an unculti- 

 vated pebbly plain — a harmas, as we call it in 

 these parts. No curtain of live hedge, no bushes, 

 hindered me from keeping an eye upon my 

 followers ; here — an all important condition — I need 

 not fear temptation from green apricots for my 

 scholars. There was free scope for all imaginable 



