MY WORK AND MY WORKSHOP 



and learnt my first lessons in mushroom-lore in the 

 company of the Crows. My collections, I need hardly 

 say, were not admitted to the house. 



In this way^ — by observing Nature and making experi- 

 ments — nearly all my lessons have been learnt: all 

 except two, in fact. I have received from others two 

 lessons of a scientific character, and two only, in the 

 whole course of my life: one in anatomy and one in 

 chemistry. 



I owe the first to the learned naturalist Moquin-Tan- 

 don, who showed me how to explore the interior of a 

 Snail in a plate filled with water. The lesson was short 

 and fruitful.^ 



My first introduction to chemistry was less fortunate. 

 It ended in the bursting of a glass vessel, with the result 

 that most of my fellow-pupils were hurt, one of them 

 nearly lost his sight, the lecturer's clothes were burnt to 

 pieces, and the wall of the lecture-room was splashed 

 with stains. Later on, when I returned to that room, no 

 longer as a pupil but as a master, the splashes were still 

 there. On that occasion I learnt one thing at least. 

 Ever after, when I made experiments of that kind, I kept 

 my pupils at a distance. 



It has always been my great desire to have a laboratory 



* See Insect Adventures, retold for young people from the works of Henri Fabre. 



[5] 



