The Great Peacock, it would seem, has taken possession of pretty well every part of the house. What will it be around my prisoner, the cause of this incursion? Luckily, one of the two windows of the study had been left open. The approach is not blocked. We enter the room, candle in hand. What we see is unforgettable. With a soft flick-flack the great Moths fly around the bell-jar, alight, set off again, come back, fly up to the ceiling and down. They rush at the candle, putting it out with a stroke of their wings; they descend on our shoulders, clinging to our clothes, grazing our faces. The scene suggests a wizard’s cave, with its whirl of Bats. Little Paul holds my hand tighter than usual, to keep up his courage. How many of them are there? About a score. Add to these the number that have strayed into the kitchen, the nursery, and the other rooms of the house; and the total of those who have arrived from the outside cannot fall far short of forty. As I said, it was a memorable evening, this Great Peacock evening. Coming from every direction and apprised I know not how, here are forty lovers eager to pay their respects to the marriageable bride born that morning amid the mysteries of my study. [127] How could the news of the joyful event have reached them? No doubt by some mysterious wireless telegraphy which has not yet found its Branly. A few days later the miracle was repeated before the wondering eyes of the naturalist and his faithful acolyte, by another moth, which in this case celebrated its nuptials by daylight in the bright sunshine. Let us hasten to say that the entomological zeal of this little moth-hunter did not fade with the feverish activity of the very young. As we see him in 1897, at the age of seven, so we find him at fifteen in 1906. The importance and value of his services had only increased as his capacities increased, and as the vigour and muscular activity of his beloved father diminished. He lent him his limbs for excursions by day and by night. What will he not do to please his father? As eagerly as he lends him his legs on his long expeditions, he lends him his arms for all the tasks that are forbidden his eighty years: for example, the excavation of the deep galleries of certain burrowing insects.