The Hermit of Serignan 



produced by the sting of a nettle. On seeing me 

 come down to dinner in this sad plight, with my 

 eyes reddened and swollen and my face unrecog- 

 nisable, the family anxiously inquired what had 

 happened to me, and were not reassured until I 

 told them of my mishap. 



I unhesitatingly attribute my painful experience 

 to the red hairs ground to powder and collected 

 into flakes. My breath sought them out in the 

 open pockets and carried them to my face, which 

 was very near. The unthinking intervention of 

 my hands, which now and again sought to ease 

 the discomfort, merely aggravated the ill by spread- 

 ing the irritating dust. 1 



What would to another have been merely 

 an annoying accident without other bearing 

 than a commonplace lesson of prudence, be- 

 came for him the starting-point of a whole 

 series of instructive experiments. 



Whatever his retirement has cost him, a 

 man so passionately devoted to animals must 

 bless the solitude of his village which enables 

 him to pass all his time in observing and 

 describing them. He congratulates himself, 

 indeed, upon his premature retirement, which 

 is dooming him to obscurity and impecuni- 

 osity for the rest of his days, at the same time 



1 Souvenirs, vi., pp. 377-378. The Life of the Caterpillar, 

 chap, v., " The Moth." 



251 



