I creep along astride the strong branches projecting horizontally into space. If I slip or if the support breaks, I shall come to grief in the midst of the angry Bees. I do not slip and the support does not break. With the bent switch which my brother hands me, I bring the finest clusters within my reach. I soon fill my pockets. Moving backwards, still straddling my branch, I recover terra firma. O wondrous days of litheness and assurance, when, for a few filberts, on a perilous perch we braved the abyss! Enough. These reminiscences, so dear to my dreams, do not interest the reader. Why stir up more of them? I am content to have brought this fact into prominence: the first glimmers of light penetrating into the dark chambers of the mind leave an indelible impression, which the years make fresher instead of dimmer. Obscured by everyday worries, the present is much less familiar to us, in its petty details, than the past, with childhood's glow upon it. I see plainly in my memory what my prentice eyes saw; and I should never succeed in reproducing with the same accuracy what I saw last week. I know my village thoroughly, though I quitted it so long ago; and I know hardly anything of the towns to which the vicissitudes of life have brought me. An exquisitely sweet link binds us to our native soil; we are like the plant that has to be torn away from the spot where it put out its first roots. Poor though it be, I should love to see my own village again; I should like to leave my bones there. Does the insect in its turn receive a lasting impression of its earliest visions? Has it pleasant memories of its first surroundings? We will not speak of the majority, a world of wandering gipsies who establish themselves anywhere provided that certain conditions be fulfilled; but the others, the settlers, living in groups: do they recall their native village? Have they, like ourselves, a special affection for the place which saw their birth? Yes, indeed they have: they remember, they recognize the maternal abode, they come back to it, they restore it, they colonize it anew. Among many other instances, let us quote that of the Zebra Halictus. She will show us a splendid example of love for one's birthplace translating itself into deeds.