The Hairy Animophila 329 



wrapped in a purplish down, we smoke a pipe 

 to celebrate the joyous occasion. 



He excels, above all things, in ridding me 

 of the troublesome folk whom I meet upon 

 my rambles. The peasant is naturally curious, 

 as fond of asking questions as a child ; but his 

 curiosity is flavoured with a spice of malice 

 and in all his questions there is an undercurrent 

 of chaff. What he fails to understand he turns 

 into ridicule. And what can be more ludicrous 

 than a gentleman looking through a glass at a 

 Fly captured with a gauze net, or a bit of rotten 

 wood picked up from the ground ? Favier 

 cuts short the bantering catechism with a word. 



We were hunting along the ground, step by 

 step, with bent backs, for some of the evidences 

 of prehistoric times that abound on the south 

 side of the mountain : serpentine-stone axes, 

 black potsherds, flint arrow-heads and spear- 

 heads, flakes, side-scrapers, cores, 



' What does your master do with those 

 payrards ? ' ^ asked a new arrival. 



' He makes them into putty for the glaziers,' 

 replied Favier, with an air of solemn assurance. 



Another time, I had just gathered a handful 

 of Rabbit-droppings in which the magnifying- 

 glass had shown me a cryptogamous growth 

 worthy of further inspection. Up comes an 



1 Gnn-^imts.— Author's Note. 



