Chapter xviii 



o 



THE HAIRY AMMOPHILA 



One day in May I was walking up and down, 

 n the look-out for anything fresh that might 

 be taking place in the harmas ^ laboratory. 

 Favier was not far off, at work in the kitchen- 

 garden. Wlio is Favier ? I may as well say 

 a few words about him at once, for we shall be 

 hearing of him again. 



Favier is an old soldier. He has pitched his 

 hut of clay and branches under the African 

 carob-trees ; he has eaten Sea-urchins at 

 Constantinople ; he has shot Starlings in the 

 Crimea, during a lull in the firing. He has 

 seen much and remembered much. In winter, 

 when work in the fields ends at four o'clock 

 and the evenings are long, he puts away rake, 

 fork, and barrow and comes and sits on the 

 hearth-stone of the kitchen fireplace, where 

 the billets of ilex-wood blaze merrily. He 



* The piece of waste ground on which the author used to study 

 his insects in their natural state. Cf. The Life of the Fly : chap. i. 

 — Translator' s Note. 



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