FABRE'S BOOK OF INSECTS 



When the dwelling with a roof and a ceiling was 

 planned, and the chimney with a flue was invented, we 

 can imagine the chilly creature saying to herself: 



"How pleasant this is I Let us pitch our tent here." 



But we will go back further still. Before huts 

 existed, before the niche in the rut, before man himself 

 had appeared, where did the Pelopaeus build? The 

 question does not "stand alone. Where did the Swallow 

 and the Sparrow build before there were windows and 

 chimneys to build in? 



Since the Swallow, the Sparrow, and the Wasp existed 

 before man, their industry cannot be dependent on the 

 works of man. Each of them must have had an art of 

 building in the time when man was not here. 



For thirty years and more I asked myself where the 

 Pelopa?us lived in those times. Outside our houses I 

 could find no trace of her nests. At last chance, which 

 favours the persevering, came to my help. 



The Serignan quarries are full of broken stones, of 

 refuse that has been piled there in the course of cen- 

 turies. Here the Fieldmouse crunches his olive-stones 

 and acorns, or now and then a Snail. The empty Snail- 

 shells lie here and there beneath a stone, and within 

 them different Bees and Wasps build their cells. In 

 searching for these treasures I found, three times, the 

 nest of a Pelopaeus among the broken stones. 



[86] 



