The Sacred Beetle and Others 



branches of coral; whether that pretty little 

 fish of our rivulets, the Stickleback, had 

 donned his wedding scarf of purple and blue; 

 whether the newly arrived Swallow was skim- 

 ming the meadows on pointed wing, chasing 

 the Craneflies, who scatter their eggs as they 

 dance through the air; if the Eyed Lizard 

 was sunning his blue-speckled body on the 

 threshold of a burrow dug in the sandstone; 

 if the Laughing Gdll, travelling from the sea 

 in the wake of the legions of fish that ascend 

 the Rhone to milt in its waters, was hovering 

 in his hundreds over the river, ever and anon 

 uttering his cry so like a maniac's laughter; 

 if . . . but that will do. To be brief, let us 

 say that, like good simple folk who find plea- 

 sure in all living things, we were off to spend 

 a morning at the most wonderful of festivals, 

 life's springtime awakening. 



Our expectations were fulfilled. The 

 Stickleback was dressed in his best: his scales 

 would have paled the lustre of silver; his 

 throat was flashing with the brightest ver- 

 milion. On the approach of the great black 

 Horse-leech, the spines on his back and sides 

 started up, as though worked by a spring. In 

 the face of this resolute attitude, the bandit 

 turns tail and slips ignominiously down 

 among the water-weeds. The placid mollusc 



