The Life of Jean Henri Fabre 



There swarmed a whole population of 

 Scarabaei, in the form of larvae, nymphs, and 

 adult insects. There, too, were crowds of 

 Rose-beetles (Cetoniae), all stages being rep- 

 resented. There, too, were great numbers of 

 Scoliae, the Two-striped Scoliae having re- 

 cently emerged from their cocoons, which still 

 had beside them the skins of the game served 

 to the larvae; and there, before the natural- 

 ist's eyes, was the solution of the problem 

 of the Scolia's food, which " his painful re- 

 searches in the Bois des Issarts had not en- 

 abled him to solve." * Less than this had 

 been needed for Favier to merit mention in 

 the order of the day! 



At the beginning of this chapter should we 

 not have placed the insects themselves at the 

 head of Fabre's collaborators in his re- 

 searches? When the insect takes a hand, 

 Favier himself is out of the running. 



In the meantime we have no intention of 

 belittling Favier, or of retracting the praise 

 which has been lavished upon him. Despite 

 his inevitable deficiencies, and sometimes even 

 because of them, Fabre owes him much. He 

 owes him important manual services; he owes 

 him curious data and inestimable discoveries; 

 lastly, he owes him hitherto unknown opin- 



1 Souvenirs, in., pp. 12-14. 

 282 



