Favier knows many things; and he knows them more particularly through having eaten them. He knows the virtues of a Badger’s back, the toothsome qualities of the leg of a Fox; he is an expert as to the best part of that Eel of the bushes, the Snake; he has browned in oil the Eyed Lizard, the ill-famed Rassade of the South; he has thought out the recipe of a fry of Locusts. I am astounded at the impossible stews which he has concocted during his cosmopolitan career. I am no less surprised at his penetrating eye and his memory for things. I have only to describe some plant, which to him is but a nameless weed, devoid of the least interest; and, if it grows in our woods, I feel pretty sure that he will bring it to me and tell me the spot where I can pick it for myself. The botany of the infinitesimal even does not foil his perspicacity. But, above all, he excels in ridding me of the troublesome folk whom I meet upon my rambles. The peasant is naturally curious, as fond of asking questions as a child; but his curiosity is flavoured with a spice of malice and in all his questions there is an undercurrent of chaff. What he fails to understand he turns into ridicule. And what can be more ludicrous than a gentleman looking through a glass at a Fly captured with a gauze net, or a bit of rotten wood picked up from the ground? Favier cuts short the bantering catechism with a word. [135] Favier has other qualities: he does not hesitate in the face of difficulties, and it is a point of honour with him to acquit himself manfully, however arduous the task. Favier is not content with faithfully executing his master’s orders. Like all intelligent and devoted servants, he divines and anticipates his desires. He has happy ideas of initiative. On the 14th of April 1880, Favier was clearing away a heap of mould resulting from the waste weeds and leaves heaped up in a corner against the enclosing wall.... In the midst of his work with spade and wheelbarrow, he suddenly called me: “A find, sir, a splendid find! Come and look!” I hurried up. There, indeed, was a splendid discovery, and of a kind to fill me with delight, reawakening all my old memories of the Bois des Issarts. [136] There swarmed a whole population of Scarabæi, in the form of larvæ, nymphs, and adult insects. There, too, were crowds of Rose-beetles (Cetoniæ), all stages being represented. There, too, were great numbers of Scoliæ, the Two-striped Scoliæ having recently emerged from their cocoons, which still had beside them the skins of the game served to the larvæ; and there, before the naturalist’s eyes, was the solution of the problem of the Scolia’s food, which “his painful researches in the Bois des Issarts had not enabled him to solve.” [137] Less than this had been needed for Favier to merit mention in the order of the day!