The Life of Jean Henri Fabre 



the expedition; it is now the Ammophila and 

 now the Decticus 1 that crosses the path of 

 the naturalist in search of plants and flow- 

 ers, recalling, by some of the most curious 

 problems of entomology, the first beginnings 

 of his vocation and the great task of his life. 

 But the silent language of the tiny crea- 

 tures destined to be his most intimate com- 

 panions through life was seconded, at an op- 

 portune moment, by the more expressive lan- 

 guage of human speech. Here we have one 

 of those events that were landmarks in Fa- 

 bre's life, marking the starting-point of a 

 fresh phase in the evolution of his ideas and 

 his labours. He alone can describe for us 

 the actual nature and exact significance of this 

 incident: 



One winter evening, when the rest of the house- 

 hold was asleep, as I sat reading beside a stove 

 whose ashes were still warm, my book made me 

 forget for a while the cares of the morrow r : these 

 heavy cares of a poor professor of physics who, after 

 piling up diplomas and for a quarter of a century 

 performing services of uncontested merit, was re- 

 ceiving for himself and his family a stipend of six- 

 teen hundred francs, or less than the wages of a 

 groom in a decent establishment. Such was the 



1 Souvenirs, vi., p. 166; i., p. 187. 



152 



