September 24, 1914] 



NATURE 



85 



THE INIMITABLE OBSERVER. 

 Fabre, Poet of Science. By Dr. C. V. Legros. 

 With a Preface by J. H, Fabre. Translated by 

 Bernard Miall. Pp. 352. (London and Leipzig : 

 T. Fisher Unwin, n.d.) Price io5. net. 

 he Life of the Fly. With which are interspersed 

 some Chapters of Autobiography. By J. Henri 

 Fabre. Translated by A. T. de Mattos. Pp. 

 xi -^ 508. (London : Hodder and Stoug-hton, 

 n.d.) Price 65. net. 



MANY who have enjoyed Fabre 's entomo- 

 logical studies will be glad to have an 

 opportunity of knowing the author more inti- 

 mately, and we have to thank Dr. Legros for a 

 fascinating biography and appreciation, which has 

 been admirably translated by Mr. Bernard Miall. 

 Jean-Henri Fabre was born at Saint-Leons, in the 

 canton of Vezins, in 1823, some seven years 

 earlier than Mistral. From his childhood he was 

 a lover of nature and poetry, and though he was 

 brought up amid the rudest privations, they did 

 not freeze "the genial current of his soul." As 

 a school-teacher at Carpentras, with 28/. a year, 

 often in arrears, he continued his own education, 

 and all was grist that came to his mill. He had 

 an enthusiasm for knowledge — about plants, 

 rocks, coins, mathematics, chemistry, physics, and 

 what not. When he attained his majority he had 

 the courage to marry. A period in Corsica, as a 

 tL-acher of physics, was marked by a revived 

 enthusiasm for mathematics, and by meeting 

 Moquin-Tandon, who initiated him in the disci- 

 pline of dissection. The next period was at the 

 Lycee of Avignon ; and it was there, in 1854, 

 that a volume by Leon Dufour, then "the 

 patriarch of entomologists," decided his vocation. 

 In spite of having to work excessively hard to 

 keep the family table spread, and in spite of every 

 possible discouragement, Fabre produced in a few 

 years a series of studies which made his reputa- 

 tion among entomologists. As early as 1859 

 Darwin spoke of him as "that inimitable 

 observer. " 



There can be no doubt that Fabre 's life was 

 terribly severe. An observer of the first rank 

 had to eke out a miserable salary with "abomin- 

 able private lessons " which spoiled his temper 

 and wasted his energies. His discovery of a pro- 

 fitable way of extracting the pigment of madder 

 was snatched from his hands, and his dream of 

 freedom to follow his vocation faded away. His 

 free popular lectures at the Abbey of Saint-Martial 

 Avignon are said to have been famous for a 

 generation, but it is more certain that they 

 aroused jealousy and ill-feeling. He was turned 

 out of his house, and might have come entirely 

 NO. 2343, VOL. 94] 



to grief had it not been for the kindness of John 

 Stuart Mill, who was then residing at Avignon. 

 After twenty ill-rewarded years of service, Fabre 

 shook off his yoke and retired in 1871 to Orange. 

 He kept things going in a precarious hand-to- 

 mouth fashion by writing introductions to the 

 various sciences, which had a great vogue in their 

 day, and had certainly the great merit of teaching 

 much in a heuristic fashion with the simplest pos- 

 sible apparatus. But Fabre 's fine work was ill-paid ; 

 the keepership of the Requen Museum at Avignon 

 was taken from him ; he lost a son of great 

 promise ; he had a very serious illness ; his cup of 

 bitterness was full. When his landlord at Orange 

 lopped the double row of plane-trees which formed 

 an avenue before his house, he could endure towns 

 no longer, and retired to the peaceful obscurity of 

 Serignan — " a quiet corner of the earth which had 

 henceforth all his heart and soul in keeping." 



In his hermit's retreat, living an ascetic life, 

 Fabre gave himself up to obser\ation and reflec- 

 tion, and produced the well-known studies — at 

 once poetic and scientific — that fill the ten volumes 

 of the "Souvenirs Entomologiques." After forty 

 years of desperate struggle he had won for him- 

 self freedom, and he used it nobly. " For thirty 

 years he never emerged from his horizon of moun- 

 tains and his garden of shingle ; he lived wholly 

 absorbed in domestic affections and the tasks of 

 a naturalist." He remained extremely, sometimes 

 painfully, poor, and was often worried ; but he 

 made a big success of his life, and if he has had 

 many hardships and sorrows he has found in the 

 vis medicatrix Naturae much more than healing. 

 His wide scientific interests and culture made him 

 an all-round naturalist ; his genius as an observer, 

 not equalled since Reaumur, brought him into 

 extraordinarily intimate acquaintance with the 

 objects of his study ; his indefinable sympathy 

 helped him in tracking the mysterious paths of 

 instinctive behaviour. It need not be supposed 

 that he has been without exception accurate, for 

 he has sometimes read too much of the man into 

 the beast ; but what eyes the man has had ! It 

 cannot be maintained that his judgment has 

 always been sound — witness his dogged anti- 

 evolutionism — but there have been few naturalists 

 who have got so near the intuition of life. We 

 would pay homage to the veteran ; he has peaceful 

 satisfaction in the twilight of his days for he 

 knows that he has the gratitude of all who love 

 nature. 



A good sample of Fabre 's essays will be found 

 in the selections from the " Souvenirs Entomolo- 

 giques " which have been excellently translated by 

 A. Teixeira de Mattos and published under a 

 somewhat inaccurate title, "The Life of the Flv." 



