FABRE'S BOOK OF INSECTS 



From this conversation I learnt two things: first, 

 that robbing birds' nests is cruel and, secondly, that birds 

 and beasts have names just like ourselves. 



"What are the names of all my friends in the woods 

 and meadows?" I asked myself. "And what does 

 Saxicola mean?" Years later I learnt that Saxicola 

 means an inhabitant of the rocks. My bird with the 

 blue eggs was a Stone-chat. 



Below our village there ran a little brook, and beyond 

 the brook was a spinney of beeches with smooth, straight 

 trunks, like pillars. The ground was padded with moss. 

 It was in this spinney that I picked my first mushroom, 

 which looked, when I caught sight of it, like an egg 

 dropped on the nrjoss by some wandering hen. There 

 were many others there, of different sizes, forms, and 

 colours. Some were shaped like bells, some like 

 extinguishers, some like cups: some were broken, and 

 were weeping tears of milk: some became blue when 

 I trod on them. Others, the most curious of all, were 

 like pears with a round hole at the top — a sort of chimney 

 whence a whiff of smoke escaped when I prodded their 

 under-side with my finger. I filled my pockets with 

 these, and made them smoke at my leisure, till at last 

 they were reduced to a kind of tinder. 



Many a time I returned to that delightful spinney, 



[4] 



