FABRE'S BOOK OF INSECTS 



From this conversation I learnt two things: first, 

 that robbing birds' nests is cruel and, secondly, that birds 

 and beasts have names just like ourselves. 



"What are the names of all my friends in the woods 

 and meadows?" I asked myself. "And what does 

 Saxicola mean?" Years later I learnt that Saxicola 

 means an inhabitant of the rocks. My bird with the 

 blue eggs was a Stone-chat. 



Below our village there ran a little brook, and beyond 

 the brook was a spinney of beeches with smooth, straight 

 trunks, like pillars. The ground was padded with moss. 

 It was in this spinney that I picked my first mushroom, 

 which looked, when I caught sight of it, like an egg 

 dropped on the ny>ss by some wandering hen. There 

 were many others there, of different sizes, forms, and 

 colours. Some were shaped like bells, some like 

 extinguishers, some like cups: some were broken, and 

 were weeping tears of milk: some became blue when 

 I trod on them. Others, the most curious of all, were 

 like pears with a round hole at the top a sort of chimney 

 whence a whiff of smoke escaped when I prodded their 

 under-side with my finger. I filled my pockets with 

 these, and made them smoke at my leisure, till at last 

 they were reduced to a kind of tinder. 



Many a time I returned to that delightful spinney, 



[4] 



