Preface 



whether reflecting the evolution of a planet 

 or the flight of a bee, contains the supreme 

 law. 



And these truths thus discovered had the 

 good fortune to be grasped by a mind which 

 knew how to understand what they them- 

 selves can but ambiguously express, to inter- 

 pret what they are obliged to conceal and, at 

 the same time, to appreciate the shimmering 

 beauty, almost invisible to the majority of 

 mankind, that shines for a moment around 

 all that exists, especially around that which 

 still remains very close to nature and has 

 hardly left its primeval obscurity. 



To make of these long annals the generous 

 and delightful masterpiece that they are and 

 not the monotonous and arid register of little 

 descriptions and insignificant acts that they 

 might have been, various and so to speak 

 conflicting gifts were needed. To the 

 patience, the precision, the scientific minute- 

 ness, the protean and practical ingenuity, the 

 energy of a Darwin in the face of the un- 

 known, to the faculty of expressing what has 

 to be expressed with order, clearness and cer- 

 tainty, the venerable anchorite of Serignan 

 adds many of those qualities which are not to 

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