The Life of the Fly 



itatlve word has taught me that spoiling birds'- 

 nests is a bad action. I did not quite under- 

 stand how the bird comes to our aid by de- 

 stroying vermin, the scourge of the crops; but 

 I felt, at the bottom of my heart, that it is 

 wrong to afflict the mothers. 



'Saxicola,' the priest had said, on seeing 

 my find. 



'Hullo!' said I to myself. 'Animals have 

 names, just like ourselves. Who named them ? 

 What are all my different acquaintances in the 

 woods and meadows called ? What does Saxi- 

 cola mean?' 



Years passed and Latin taught me that Sax- 

 icola means an inhabitant of the rocks. My 

 bird, in fact, was flying from one rocky point 

 to the other while I lay in ecstasy before its 

 eggs; its house, its nest, had the rim of a large 

 stone for a roof. Further knowledge gleaned 

 from books taught me that the lover of stony 

 hill-sides is also called the Mottetix, or Clod- 

 hopper,^ because, in the ploughing-season, she 

 flies from clod to clod, inspecting the furrows 

 rich in unearthed grubworms. Lastly, I came 

 upon the Provencal expression Cul-blanc, 



'I do not know that the Saxicola is actually called a 

 Clodhopper in English. Her English names are Stone- 

 chat, Wheat-ear, Whin-chat, Fallow-chat, Fallow-finch 

 and White-tail, which last corresponds with the Cul-blanc 

 of the Provencal dialect. — Translator's Note. 

 392 



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