The Life of the Fly 



scene of observation, the mountain^ is but a 

 few hundred steps away, with its tangle of ar- 

 butus, rock-roses and arborescent heather; 

 with its sandy spaces dear to the Bembeces; 

 with its marly slopes exploited by different 

 Wasps and Bees. And that is why, foreseeing 

 these riches, I have abandoned the town for 

 the village and come to Serignan to weed my 

 turnips and water my lettuces. 



Laboratories are being founded, at great 

 expense, on our Atlantic and Mediterranean 

 coasts, where people cut up small sea-animals, 

 of but meagre interest to us; they spend a for- 

 tune on powerful microscopes, delicate dissect- 

 ing-instruments, engines of capture, boats, fish- 

 ing-crews, aquariums, to find out how the yolk 

 of an Annelid's- egg is constructed, a question 

 whereof I have never yet been able to grasp 

 the full importance; and they scorn the little 

 land-animal, which lives in constant touch 

 with us, which provides universal psychology 

 with documents of inestimable value, which 

 too often threatens the public wealth by de- 

 stroying our crops. When shall we have an 

 entomological laboratory for the study not of 



^Mont Ventoux, an outlying summit of the Alps, 6,270 

 feet high. Cf. Insect Life: chap. xiii. — Translator's Note. 

 2A red-blooded Worm. — Translator's Note. 

 26 



