The Mason-bees 



a year, if you please! — I could not hesitate 

 over the expense. A surveyor's chain and 

 stakes, arrows, level, square and compass 

 were bought with my money. A microscopic 

 graphometer, not much larger than the palm 

 of one's hand and costing perhaps five francs, 

 was provided by the establishment. There 

 was no tripod to it; and I had one made. In 

 short, my equipment was complete. 



And so, when May came, once every week 

 we left the gloomy school-room for the fields. 

 It was a regular holiday. The boys disputed 

 for the honour of carrying the stakes, divided 

 into bundles of three; and more than one 

 shoulder, as we walked through the town, 

 felt the reflected glory of those erudite rods. 

 I myself — why conceal the fact? — was not 

 without a certain satisfaction as I piously car- 

 ried that most delicate and precious appa- 

 ratus, the historic five-franc graphometer. 

 The scene of operations was an untilled, 

 flinty plain, a harmas,^ as we call it in the dis- 

 trict. Here, no curtain of green hedges or 

 shrubs prevented me from keeping an eye 



iCf. T/ie Life of the Fly, by J. Henri Fabre, trans- 

 lated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chap. i. — Trans' 

 tutor's Note. 



6 



