The Life of the Fly 



ening to the echoes of illusions and difficulties 

 roused in my memories by the cupboard-wind- 

 ow and the hired blackboard. Let us go 

 back to the sunken roads of the Legue, which 

 have become classic, so they say, since the ap- 

 pearance of my notes on the Oil-beetles. 1 Ye 

 illustrious ravines, with your sun-baked slopes, 

 if I have contributed a little to your fame, you, 

 in your turn, have given me many fair hours 

 of forgetfulness in the happiness of learning. 

 You, at least, did not lure me with vain hopes; 

 all that you promised you gave me and often 

 a hundredfold. You are my promised land, 

 where I would have sought at the last to pitch 

 my observer's tent. My wish was not to be 

 realized. Let me, at least, in passing, greet 

 my beloved animals of the old days. 



I raise my hat to Ccrceris tuberculata, 

 whom I see engaged on that slant, storing her 

 Cleonus. 2 As I saw her then, so I see her 

 now : the same staggering attempts to hoist 

 the prey to the mouth of the burrow; the same 

 brawls between males watching in the brush- 



'The essays on the Oil-beetles have not yet been trans- 

 lated into English. But cf. Chap. XX of the present 

 volume. — Translator's Note. 



2 A large species of Weevil. For the habits of the two 

 wasps known as Cerceris bupresticida and Cerceris tuber- 

 culata, cf. Insect Life: chaps, iii to v. — Translator's Note. 



86 



