The Life of Jean Henri Fabre 



I promise; and the curate continues his walk. 

 I come home with two good seeds cast on the fal- 

 lows of my childish brain. An authoritative word 

 has taught me that plundering birds' nests is a bad 

 action. I did not quite understand how the bird 

 comes to our aid by destroying 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 Saxicola 

 mean ? " 



Years passed; and Latin taught me that Saxi- 

 cola 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 Motteux, or Clodhopper, 1 because, in the 

 ploughing season, she flies from clod to clod, in- 

 specting the furrows rich in unearthed grub- 

 worms. Lastly, I came upon the Provencal expres- 



1 The Wheat-ear, one of the Saxicolae, is known also as 

 the White-Tail, the meaning of both forms being the 

 same; White-ear being a corruptive of the Anglo- 

 Saxon name. Both correspond with the Provencal Cul- 

 blanc. The Stonechat is a member of the same genus. 

 B. M. 



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