[1] In a later essay, Fragments on Psychology, M. Fabre withdraws these strictures on (Erasmus) Darwin, explaining that they are based on a misquotation by Lacordaire, who writes “Sphex” where Darwin had said “wasp.” [↑]
X
THE SPHEX OF LANGUEDOC
When the chemist has ripely considered his plan of research, he mixes his reactives at whatever moment suits him best, and sets his retorts on the fire. He is master of time, place, and circumstance, chooses his own hour, isolates himself in his laboratory, where he will be undisturbed, and brings about such or such conditions as reflexion may suggest. He is searching out the secrets of brute nature, whose chemical activities science can arouse at will.
The secrets of living nature—not those of anatomy, but those of life in action, especially of instinct—offer conditions far more difficult and delicate to the observer. Far from being able to take his own time, he is the slave of season, day, or hour, even of the moment. If an opportunity offer, it must be seized at once—it may be very long ere it comes again. And as it usually comes just when one is thinking least about it, nothing is ready whereby to turn it to account. One must improvise there and then one’s little means of experiment, combine one’s plan, devise one’s wiles, imagine one’s tactics, and feel only too fortunate if inspiration come quickly enough to [[133]]allow one to profit by the chance offered. Moreover, such chances come only to one who looks out for them, watches for days and days,—here on sandy slopes exposed to the burning sun, there in the cauldron of some path enclosed by high banks, or on some shelf of sandstone, the solidity of which is not always such as to inspire confidence. If it be granted you to set up your observatory under the scanty shade of an olive that you may think will shelter you from a pitiless sun, then bless the fate which is treating you like a sybarite; your lot is in Eden. Above all—keep a sharp lookout. The spot is promising, and who knows? Any moment the chance may come.
It has come! tardily, it is true, but it has come. Ah! could one but observe now, in the peace of one’s study, isolated, absorbed, thinking only of what one is studying, far from the profane passer-by who will stop, seeing you so preoccupied where he sees nothing, will overwhelm you with questions and take you for a diviner of springs with the magic hazel wand, or worse, as a doubtful character, seeking by incantations old pots full of money hidden underground. Even if you seem to him to have the look of a Christian, he will come near, look at what you are looking at, and smile in a fashion which leaves no possible doubt as to his humble opinion of people who spend their time in watching flies. You would only be too happy if this annoying visitor would depart, laughing in his sleeve, but without disturbing everything and repeating the disaster caused by the soles of my two conscripts.
Or if it is not the passer-by who is perplexed by [[134]]your unaccountable proceedings, it will be the garde-champêtre, that inexorable representative of the law amid the fallow fields. Long has he had his eye upon you. He has so often seen you wandering like a troubled ghost for no reason that he can perceive; has so often caught you seeking something in the ground, or knocking down some bit of wall in some hollow way with infinite precaution that he begins to look on you as a suspicious character, a vagabond, a gipsy, a tramp, or, at all events, a maniac. If you have a botanical tin, to him it is the ferret-cage of the poacher, and it will be impossible to convince him that you are not destroying all the rabbits in the neighbouring warrens, regardless of the laws of the chase and the rights of the owner. Beware! However thirsty you may be, lay no finger on a cluster in the vineyard hard by; the man of the municipal livery would be there, delighted to bear witness and get at last an explanation of your exasperatingly perplexing conduct.
I must do myself the justice to say that I have never committed such a misdeed, and yet one day when I was lying on the sand, absorbed in the domestic affairs of a Bembex, I heard beside me, “In the name of the law, I summon you to follow me!” It was the garde-champêtre of Les Angles, who having vainly watched for an opportunity of catching me in some offence, and being daily more desirous of an answer to the riddle which tormented him, had finally decided on a summons. An explanation became necessary. The poor man did not appear in the least convinced. “Bah! bah!” said he, “you’ll never get me to believe that you come and roast [[135]]yourself in the sun just to watch flies. I keep my eye on you, you know, and the first time.… Well, that’s enough.” He departed. I have always believed that my red ribbon had a good deal to do with this departure, and I ascribe to that ribbon other similar services during my botanical or entomological rambles. It seemed to me—was it an illusion?—it did seem to me that during my botanical expeditions on Mont Ventoux, the guide was more manageable than usual and the donkey less obstinate.