The Life of the Spider 



J. H. Fabre, as some few people know, is 

 the author of half a score of well-filled vol- 

 umes in which, under the title of Souvenirs 

 Entomologiques, he has set down the results 

 of fifty years of observation, study and exper- 

 iment on the insects that seem to us the best- 

 known and the most familiar: different species 

 of wasps and wild bees, a few gnats, flies, 

 beetles and caterpillars; in a word, all those 

 vague, unconscious, rudimentary and almost 

 nameless little lives which surround us on 

 every side and which we contemplate with 

 eyes that are amused, but already thinking of 

 other things, when we open our window to 

 welcome the first hours of spring, or when 

 we go into the gardens or the fields to bask 

 in the blue summer days. 



We take up at random one of these bulky 

 volumes and naturally expect to find first of 

 all the very learned and rather dry lists of 

 names, the very fastidious and exceedingly 

 quaint specifications of those huge, dusty 

 graveyards of which all the entomological 

 treatises that we have read so far seem almost 

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