Fabre's Writings 



It was in 1868. I had only just left the Higher 

 Normal College, and was a very youthful assistant 

 naturalist at the Museum. I can still see myself 

 on the box-seat of an omnibus, crossing the Place 

 de la Concorde, with an open book on my knees ; 

 I was reading the history of the Sitaris humeralis; 

 I was marvelling at its complicated metamor- 

 phoses and its ruses for making its way into the 

 nest of the solitary Bee. 1 



These early essays were followed by many 

 others, also published in the Annales des sci- 

 ences naturelles, and were always received 

 with the same favour by all the notable sci- 

 entists of the time. 



While he was soaring toward the heights, 

 and making his way into unexplored regions, 

 under the astounded gaze of the most emi- 

 nent authorities, who saw themselves sud- 

 denly equalled and even surpassed, his sci- 

 entific genius loved also to look downwards, 

 to approach the beginners, to return, as it 

 were, to the starting-point, in order to hold 

 out his hand to them, and to trace out for 

 them, through all the stages of science, the 

 path that he had opened up for himself in the 

 face of unheard-of difficulties. 



He laboured to give them what he himself 

 had felt the lack of almost as much as the 



1 Revue Scientifique, May 7, 1910. 



299 



