The Life of Jean Henri Fabre 



of hazard. Ah, but what a wretched resource is 

 hazard, when such rational contrivances are in 

 question ! One might as well throw into the air the 

 characters of the alphabet and expect to see them, 

 on falling, form certain lines selected from a poem! 

 Instead of loading our minds with such tortuous 

 ideas, how much simpler and more truthful to say: 

 " A sovereign Order rules over matter." This is 

 what the Sloe Weevil tells us in its humility ! 1 



We heard the same language, uttered per- 

 haps even more persuasively, from the Hairy 

 Ammophila, among many others, one day 

 when, as a beginner in entomology, he con- 

 sidered her performing her delicate and ex- 

 pert operations, bending over a bank on the 

 table-land of Les Angles, in company with a 

 friend : 



The Wasp acts with a precision of which science 

 would be jealous; she knows what man hardly ever 

 knows; she understands the complex nervous sys- 

 tem of her victim. ... I say, she knows and un- 

 derstands; I ought to say, she acts as though she 

 knew and understood. Her act is all inspiration. 

 The insect, without having any conception of what 

 it is doing, obeys the instinct that impels it. But 



1 Souvenirs, v., p. 130. The Sacred Beetle and Others, 

 chap, xvi., " The Lunary Copris." Souvenirs, vi., p. 97. 

 The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles, chap, x., " Insect 

 Colouring." Souvenirs, VH., p. 193. 

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