But it must not be supposed that Fabre attaches any great value to these collections, enormous though the sum of labour which they represent. To him they have been a means of education, a means of organizing and arranging his knowledge, and not of satisfying an idle curiosity; not the amusement of one content with the rind of things. In order to identify at first sight such specimens as one encounters and proposes to examine, one must first of all learn to observe and to see thoroughly, and to school the eyes in the colours and forms peculiar to each individual species. One may fairly complain of Réaumur, for example, that his knowledge was uncertain and incomplete. Too often he leaves his readers undecided as to the nature of the species whose habits he describes. Fabre himself, by dint of criticizing with so much humour the abuse of classifications, has sometimes allowed himself to fall into the same fault. (7/28.) He has taken good care, however, not to neglect the systematic study of species; witness his "Flora of the Vaucluse" and that careful catalogue of Avignon which he has not disdained to republish. (7/29.) The truth is that "if we do not know their names the knowledge of the things escapes us" (7/30.), and he was profoundly conscious of the truth of this precept of the great Linnaeus. The middle of the room is entirely occupied by a great table of walnut- wood, on which are arranged bottles, test-tubes, and old sardine-boxes, which Fabre employs in order to watch the evolution of a thousand nameless or doubtful eggs, to observe the labours of their larvae, the creation and the hatching of cocoons, and the little miracles of metamorphosis, "after a germination more wonderful than that of the acorn which makes the oak." Covers of metallic gauze resting on earthenware saucers full of sand, a few carboys and flower-pots or sweetmeat jars closed with a square of glass; these serve as observation or experimental cages in which the progress and the actions of "these tiny living machines" can be examined. Fabre has revealed himself as a psychologist without rival, of a consummate skill in the difficult and delicate art of experimentation; the art of making the insect speak, of putting questions to it, of forcing it to betray its secrets; for experiment is "the only method which can throw any light upon the nature of instincts." His resources being slender and his mind inventive, he has ingeniously supplemented the poverty of his equipment, and has discovered less costly and less complex means of conducting his experiments; knowing the secret of extracting the sublimest truth from clumsy combinations of "trivial, peasant-made articles."