These excursions into the world of the fields, the delight of his youth and his earliest childhood, were henceforth to form the first item on his programme of studies. Mathematics were dropped, as Moquin-Tandon had advised. Physics and chemistry were put in their proper place, in the teaching of the lycée, and the whole of the young professor’s free energies were expended upon the research work of the naturalist.
Necessarily limited by his occupation as a teacher, his investigations could not at ordinary times extend beyond the neighbourhood of Avignon. One of his favourite localities for observation, by reason of its nearness and its entomological wealth, was the table-land of Les Angles, opposite the town on the right bank of the Rhône. Morning or evening, he made quick work of crossing the river and climbing the cliff which divides it from the barren table-land which he calls his “little Arabia Petræa.”
Presently his Thursdays and holidays were devoted to more distant and more prolonged observations. His steps took him, by preference, down-stream from Avignon, along the right bank of the Rhône, opposite the embouchure of the Durance, to a spot known as the Bois des Issarts. Not that he was [[130]]drawn thither by the mossy carpets or the twilight of lofty forest trees which form the charm of our woodlands. The burning plains where the Cicada shrilled and the olive flourished know nothing of these delightful retreats, so full of shadow and coolness. Here is Fabre’s own description:
The Bois des Issarts is a coppice of holm-oaks no higher than one’s head and sparingly distributed in scanty clumps which, even at their feet, hardly temper the force of the sun’s rays. When I used to settle myself in some part of the coppice suitable for my observations, on certain afternoons in the dog-days of July and August, I had the shelter of a large umbrella. If I neglected to furnish myself with this embarrassing adjunct to a long walk, my only resource against sunstroke was to lie down at full length behind some sandy knoll; and, when the veins in my temples were throbbing to bursting point, my last hope lay in putting my head down a rabbit-burrow. Such are one’s means of keeping cool in the Bois des Issarts.
What was there to draw him and retain him in such places, so unpropitious for the holiday of a professor on vacation? Ah! they are the favourite resort of the Bembex, one of his favourite insects. “A blazing sun, a sky magnificently blue, sandy slopes [[131]]to dig in, game in abundance to feed the larvæ, a peaceful spot hardly ever disturbed by a passing step”: all things combined to attract the digger-wasp to such localities.
I was, however, not the only one to profit by the shade of my umbrella; I was generally surrounded by numerous companions. Gad-flies of various species would take refuge under the silken dome, and sit peacefully on every part of the tightly-stretched cover. I was rarely without their society when the heat became overpowering. To while away the hours when I had nothing to do, it amused me to watch their great gold eyes, which shone like carbuncles under my canopy; I loved to follow their solemn progress when some part of the ceiling became too hot and obliged them to move a little way on.
One day, bang! The tight cover resounded like the skin of a drum. Perhaps an oak had dropped an acorn on the umbrella. Presently, one after the other, bang, bang, bang! Can some practical joker have come to disturb my solitude and fling acorns or little pebbles at my umbrella? I leave my tent and inspect the neighbourhood: nothing! The same sharp sound is repeated. I look up at the ceiling, and the mystery is explained. The Bembex of the vicinity, who all consume Gad-flies, had discovered the rich provender that was keeping me company, and were impudently penetrating my shelter to seize the flies on the ceiling. [[132]]Things were going to perfection; I had only to sit still and look.
Every moment a Bembex would enter, swift as lightning, and dart up to the silken ceiling, which resounded with a sharp thud. Some rumpus was going on aloft, where the eye could, no longer distinguish between attacker and attacked, so lively was the fray. The struggle did not last for an appreciable time: the Wasp would retire forthwith with a victim between her legs.
Obviously this suddenness of attack, followed by the swift removal of the prey, does not allow the Bembex to regulate her dagger-play.[1]
With ever-increasing accuracy, by the combined efforts of observation and experiment, that rich entomological material was amassed which was one day to serve for the erection of one of the finest and most enduring monuments of contemporary science.
We should form but a very incomplete idea of the sort of work to which the future author of the Souvenirs began to devote himself at this early stage of his professorship were we merely to note his frequent visits to Les Angles and his long sessions beneath his umbrella in the Bois des Issarts.
Apart from this favourite field of observation, [[133]]the enthusiastic curiosity of the naturalist found scope for its exercise on every hand.
Whether at home or abroad, whether passing along the public highway or visiting a friend, it was enough for an insect to appear to capture and retain his attention without regard for the circumstances and without a thought as to what might be said of him. On one occasion a Pelopæus, that is, a Potter-wasp (πηλοποίος) holding her pellet of mud in her jaws, came to his fireside one washing-day, seeking access to the nest which she was building behind the breast of the fireplace. More anxious about the Wasp than about the washing, he controlled the fire so that it should not too greatly incommode the little mason by eddies of smoke or flame, and for two good hours he followed the coming and going of the Pelopæus, and the progress of her nest-building. This was in the early days of his Avignon professorship.[2]