More Hunting Wasps 



celll's * tube 1 This is the thrice-blest per- 

 iod when I cease to be a schoolmaster and be- 

 come a schoolboy, the schoolboy in love with 

 animals. Like a madder-cutter off for his 

 day's work, I set out carrying over my 

 shoulder a solid digging-implement, the local 

 luchet, and on my back my game-bag with 

 boxes, bottles, trowel, glass tubes, tweezers, 

 lenses and other impedimenta. A large um- 

 brella saves me from sunstroke. It is the 

 most scorching hour of the hottest day in the 

 year. Exhausted by the heat, the Cicadae 

 are silent. The bronze-eyed Gad-flies seek 

 a refuge from the pitiless sun under the roof 

 of my silken shelter; other large Flies, the 

 sobre-hued Pangoniae, dash themselves reck- 

 lessly against my face. 



The spot at which I have installed myself 

 is a sandy clearing which I had recognized 

 the year before as a site beloved of the 



discovered, independently of Robert Boyle the Irishman 

 (1627-1691), the law generally known as Boyle's law, 

 which states that the product of the volume and the tem- 

 perature of a gas is constant at constant temperature. 

 His flask is an apparatus contrived to illustrate atmos- 

 pheric pressure and ensure a constant flow of liquid. 

 Translator's Note. 



1 Evangelista Toricelli (1608-1647), a disciple of Gali- 

 leo and professor of philosophy and mathematics at 

 Florence. His "tube" is our mercury barometer. He 

 was the first to obtain a vacuum by means of mercury; 

 and he also improved the microscope and the telescope. — 

 Trr.nslator's Note. 



34 



