TRANSLATOR'S NOTE 



The author of these essays was born at Serignan, in 

 Provence, in the year 1823, and was long in coming to his 

 own. His birthday, indeed, is now celebrated annually 

 (Henri Fabre is still alive) at both Serignan and Orange ; 

 but, as Maurice Maeterlinck, writing of this " Insect's 

 Homer . . . whose brow should be girt with a double 

 and radiant crown," says : 



" Fame is often forgetful, negligent, behindhand or 

 unjust ; and the crowd is almost ignorant of the name 

 of J. H. Fabre, who is one of the most profound and 

 inventive scholars and also one of the purest writers and, 

 I was going to add, one of the finest poets of the century 

 that is just past." 



Fabre's Souvenirs^' Entomologiques form ten volumes, 

 containing two to three hundred essays in all. The 

 present book is a translation of the greater part of a 

 volume of selected essays, comprising, in addition to 

 those here presented, three that appeared in a volume 

 entitled Insect Life and published ten years ago by 

 Messrs. Macmillan, in a version from the able pen of 



