The Professor: Avignon 



tion, the enthusiastic curiosity of the natural- 

 ist found scope for its exercise on every 

 hand. 



Whether at home or abroad, whether pass- 

 ing along the public highway or visiting a 

 friend, it was enough for an insect to appear 

 to capture and retain his attention without 

 regard for the circumstances and without a 

 thought as to what might be said of him. 

 On one occasion a Pelopaeus, that is, a Pot- 

 ter-wasp (7ttj\o7toios) J holding her pellet of 

 mud in her jaws, came to his fireside one 

 washing-day, seeking access to the nest which 

 she was building behind the breast of the 

 fireplace. More anxious about the Wasp 

 than about the washing, he controlled the fire 

 so that it should not too greatly incommode 

 the little mason by eddies of smoke or flame, 

 and for two good hours he followed the com- 

 ing and going of the Pelopaeus, and the prog- 

 ress of her nest-building. This was in the 

 early days of his Avignon professorship. 1 



Another day it was once again the strange 

 mud-worker which attracted his attention, not 

 in his own house this time but in the kitchen 

 of Roberty, one of the chief farmhouses on 

 the outskirts of Avignon. Returning to din- 

 ner from their work in the fields, the farm 



1 Souvenirs, iv., 3-5. 



133 



