The Life of Jean Henri Fabre 



and carried by the storm into the alder-thickets of 

 the Aygues. 



It reminds us, too, of that other emigrant, 

 whose intimate acquaintance it has become. 



And we are touched by the analogy between 

 its fate and his own. Fabre too was a child of 

 the heights rich in hazel-bushes. 1 He too had 

 to leave the place of his birth, carried away by 

 the storm that tore him from the bosom of his 

 native mountains to bear him into the plains of 

 Provence. He too made the voyage with very poor 

 and very fragile equipment. For a long time, 

 terribly tossed by the waves, he was more than 

 once sorely bruised, but was yet not broken upon 

 the stones of the torrent; more than once he was 

 whirled suddenly round, but he nevertheless con- 

 tinued to pursue his aim, and finally he pierced the 

 husk and emerged from the shell, to give his activ- 

 ity free scope, as soon as he wa's able to free him- 

 self and establish his lot in a favourable environ- 

 ment. 



However, contrary to what occurs in the case 

 of the Apoderus, the conditions of his life seem 



1 Fabre lived the first years of his life (cf. chap, i.) on 

 the mountains of Lavaysse, which are almost of the birth 

 and bifurcation of the two ranges of the Levezon and 

 the Palanger. In the language of his country La Vaysse, 

 pronounced Lo Baisso, means " the hazel-bush." 



An alien zoology too is represented in the osier-beds 

 of the Aygues, whose peace is never disturbed save in 

 freshets of exceptional duration. The wild spates of the 

 Aygues bring into our countryside and strand in the 

 osier-thickets the largest of our Snails, the glory of Bur- 

 gundy, Helix pramatias. 



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