The Life of Jean Henri Fabre 



the assertion, which nothing will induce him to 

 retract, that the bat is a rat which has grown 

 wings, the slug an old snail which has lost its 

 shell, the night-jar a toad with a passion for milk, 

 which has sprouted feathers the better to suck the 

 goats' udders at night, and so forth. The cats and 

 the dog join the company at times, and one al- 

 most regrets that one is not within reach of the 

 sturdy old man, so that one might respond to his 

 call. 



See him lying on the sand where everything is 

 grilling in the burning rays of the sun, watching 

 some wasp that is digging its burrow, noting its least 

 movement, trying to divine its intentions, to make 

 it confess the secret of its actions, following the 

 labours of the innumerable Scarabaei that clean the 

 surface of the soil of all that might defile it — 

 the droppings of large animals, the decomposing 

 bodies of small birds, moles, or water-rats; putting 

 unexpected difficulties in their way, slily giving 

 these tiny life-companions of his problems of his 

 own devising to solve. 1 



That is well-expressed, and it gives us a 



fairly correct idea of the vital and poetic 



charm of the Souvenirs. 



• • • • . 



The same writer asks, speaking of the well- 

 defined tasks performed by all these little 

 creatures beloved of the worthy biologist of 



1 Souvenirs, vi., pp. 76-97 ; The Gloiv-ivorm and Other 

 Beetles, chap, ix., " Dung-beetles of the Pampas." 



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