Some ask him a host of questions relating to entomology or philosophy; others ask him for impossible answers to some of the fascinating and mysterious problems which he has expounded; women confide in him their little private griefs or their intimate sorrows, a naive form of homage; but a thousand times more touching than any other, and one that shows how profound has been the beneficent influence of his books upon certain isolated minds, and what consolation can be derived from science when it finds a sufficiently eloquent voice to interpret it. As he can work no longer, these visits now fill his life, formally so occupied; and in the midst of all the sympathy extended to him he is sensible, not of the twilight, but of a sunrise; he feels that his work has been good, that an infinity of minds are learning through him to regard plants and animals with greater affection; and that the consideration of men, finally directed upon his work, will not readily exhaust it, for it is one of the Bibles of Nature. NOTES. NOTES TO INTRODUCTION. Introduction/1. Letters to his brother, 1898-1900. Introduction/2. I have made some valuable "finds" here; among other pieces cited the fragment on "Playthings," the curious description of the "Eclipse," and the poem on "Number" are here published for the first time. Introduction/3. This negligence in the matter of correspondence is not least among the causes which have mitigated against his popularity. NOTES TO CHAPTER 1. 1/1. "It is a country that has very little charm." To his brother, 18th August, 1846. 1/2. "Practicien, homme d'affaires ou de chicane": roughly, "practitioner, man of business or law": so his father is described in his birth certificate. 1/3. "Souvenirs entomologiques," 2nd series, chapter 4, and 7th series, chapter 19. 1/4. Id., 8th series, chapter 8. 1/5. To his brother, 15th August, 1896. 1/6. Id. "As brothers, we are one only; but in virtue of our different tastes we are two, and I am amused and interested where you might well be bored." 1/7. Frédéric Fabre, like his brother, an ex-scholar of the normal primary school of Vaucluse, was first of all teacher at Lapalud (Vaucluse), then professor in the communal college of Orange. He was director of the primary school attached to the normal school of Avignon, where he voluntarily retired from teaching in 1859. He then became, successively, secretary to the Chamber of Commerce of Avignon, director of the Vaucluse Docks, and finally director of the Crillon Canal, which position he still occupies (December, 1912). 1/8. "Souvenirs entomologiques," 10th series, chapter 9. 1/9. Among his innumerable manuscripts I have found a vast number of little poems, which date from this period. 1/10. It was then that he gave up his position to his brother Frédéric, who had continually followed closely in his steps, and who in turn had just obtained the qualification of pupil-teacher and bursar (August, 1842).