He had need of that indefinite leisure which had hitherto been so wholly lacking, for the events of ephemeral lives occur at indeterminate hours, at unexpected moments, and are of brief duration.
So, attentive to their least movements, Fabre goes forth to observe them at the earliest break of day, in the red dawn, when the bee "pops her head out of her attic window to see what the weather is," and the spiders of the thickets lie in wait under the whorls of their nets, "which the tears of night have changed into chaplets of dewdrops, whose magic jewellery, sparkling in the sun," is already attracting moths and midges.
Seated for hours before a sprig of terebinth, his eye, armed with the magnifying glass, follows the slow manoeuvres of the terebinth louse, whose proboscis "cunningly distils the venom which causes the leaf to swell and produces those enormous tumours, those misshapen and monstrous galls, in which the young pass their period of slumber."
He watches at night, by the dim light of a lantern, to copy the Scolopendra at her task, seeking to surprise the secret of her eggs [(7/23.)]; to observe the Cione constructing her capsule of goldbeater's skin, or the Processional caterpillars travelling head to tail along their satin trail, extinguishing his candle only when sleep at last sets his eyelids blinking. He will wake early to witness the fairy-like resurrection of the silkworm moth [(7/24.)]; "in order not to lose the moment when the nymph bursts her swaddling-bands," or when the wing of the locust issues from its sheath and "commences to sprout"; no spectacle in the world is more wonderful than the sight of "this extraordinary anatomy in process of formation," the unrolling of these "bundles of tissue, cunningly folded and reduced to the smallest possible compass" in the insignificant alar stumps, which gradually unfold "like an immense set of sails," like the "body-linen of the princess" of the fairy-tale, which was contained in one single hemp-seed. [(7/25.)]
In his Harmas he is like a stranger discovering an unknown world; "like a kindly giant from Sirius, holding a magnifying glass to his eye, retaining his breath, lest it should overturn and sweep away the pigmies which he is observing."
His passion for interrogating the Sphinx of life, everywhere and at all moments, sufficed to fill his days from one end of the year to the other. When some distant subject interested him, even on the most scorching days, he would put "his lunch in his pocket, an apple and a crust of bread," and sit out in the hot sunlight, accompanied by his dog, Vasco, Tom, or Rabbit; fearing only that some importunate third person might come between nature and himself.
When he walked in his garden he would let nothing escape him; witness those precise notes of an eclipse of the sun, and of the effects which that phenomenon produces upon animal life as a whole.
While his children followed the progress of the moon across the sun through a pane of smoked glass, he attentively observed all that occurred in the countryside.
"It is four; the day grows pale; the temperature is fresher; the cocks crow, surprised by this kind of twilight which comes before the hour. A few dogs are baying...The swallows, numerous before, have all disappeared...a couple have taken refuge in my study, one window of which is open...when the normal light returns they will come outdoors once more...The nightingale, which had so long importuned me by his interminable song, is silent at last [(7/26.)]; the black-capped skylarks, which were warbling continually, are suddenly still...only the young house-sparrows under the tiles of the roof are mournfully chirping...Peace and silence, the daylight more than half gone...In the Harmas I can no longer see the insects flying; I find only one bee pillaging the rosemary; all life has disappeared.
"Only a weevil, the Lixus," which he is observing in a cage, "continues, step by step, without the slightest emotion, his amorous by-play, as though nothing unusual were happening...The nightingale and the skylark may be silent, oppressed by fear; the bee may re-enter her hive; but is a weevil to be upset because the sun threatens to go out?" [(7/27.)]