AS THE LABOURER OF MAN. 217 



And how much more right have you to say so ! You are alone 

 against the universal conspiracy of life. You also may exclaim, "They 

 are too many !" 



You insist. See here these fields so full of inspiring hope ; see 

 the humid pastures where I might please myself with watching the 

 cattle lost among the thick herbage. Let us lead thither the herds ! 



They are expected. Without them what would become of those 

 living clouds of insects which love nothing but blood ? The blood of 

 the ox is good ; the blood of man is better. Enter ; seat yourself in 

 their midst; you will be well received, for you are their banquet. 

 These darts, these horns, these pincers, will find an exquisite delicacy 

 in your flesh ; a sanguinary orgie will open on your body for the 

 frantic dance of this famished host, which will not relax at least from 

 want ; you shall see more than one fall away, and die of the 

 intoxicating fountain which he had opened with his dart. Wounded, 

 bleeding, swollen with puffed-up sores, hope for no repose. Others 

 will come, and again others, for ever, and without end. For if the 

 climate is less severe than in the zones of the South, in revenge, the 

 eternal rain that ocean of soft warm water incessantly flooding our 

 meadows hatches in a hopeless fecundity those nascent and greedy 

 lives, which are impatient to rise, to be born, and to finish their career 

 by the destruction of superior existences. 



I have seen, not in the marshes, but on the western heights, those 

 pleasant verdurous hills, clothed with woods or meadows I have 

 seen the pluvial waters repose for lack of outlet ; and then, when 

 evaporated by the sun's rays, leave the earth covered with a rich and 

 abundant animal production slugs, snails, insects of a myriad species, 

 all people of terrible appetite, born with sharp teeth, with formidable^ 

 apparatus, and ingenious machines of* destruction. Powerless against 

 the irruption of an unexpected host which crawled, stirred, ascended, 

 penetrated, had almost eaten up ourselves, we contended with them 

 through the agency of some brave and voracious fowls, which never 

 counted their enemies, and did not criticise, but swallowed them. 

 These Breton and Vendean fowls, inspired with the genius of their 



