My delicate burden, which would be ruined by a false step, makes me give up the remainder of the climb. Some other day I shall see the trees on the hill-top over which the sun rises. I go down the slope again. At the bottom I meet the parish priest’s curate reading his breviary as he takes his walk. He sees me coming solemnly along, like a relic-bearer; he catches sight of my hand hiding something behind my back: “What have you there, my boy?” he asks. All abashed, I open my hand and show my blue egg on its bed of moss. “Ah!” says his reverence. “A Saxicola’s egg! Where did you get it?” “Up there, father, under a stone.” Question follows question; and my peccadillo stands confessed. “By chance I found a nest which I was not looking for. There were six eggs in it. I took one of them—here it is;—and I am waiting for the rest to hatch. I shall go back for the others when the young birds have their quill-feathers.” “You mustn’t do that, my little friend,” replies the priest. “You mustn’t rob the mother of her brood; you must respect the innocent little ones; you must let God’s birds grow up and fly from the nest. They are the joy of the fields, and they clear the earth of its vermin. Be a good boy, now, and don’t touch the nest.” I promise; and the curate continues his walk. I come home with two good seeds cast on the fallows of my childish brain. An authoritative word has taught me that plundering birds’ nests is a bad action. I did not quite understand how the bird comes to our aid by destroying vermin, the scourge of the crops; but I felt, at the bottom of my heart, that it is wrong to afflict the mothers. “Saxicola,” the priest had said, on seeing my find. “Hullo!” said I to myself. “Animals have names, just like ourselves. Who named them? What are all my different acquaintances in the woods and meadows called? What does Saxicola mean?” Years passed; and Latin taught me that Saxicola means an inhabitant of the rocks. My bird, in fact, was flying from one rocky point to the other while I lay in ecstasy before its eggs; its house, its nest, had the rim of a large stone for a roof. Further knowledge gleaned from books taught me that the lover of stony hill-sides is also called the Motteux, or Clodhopper, [21] because, in the ploughing season, she flies from clod to clod, inspecting the furrows rich in unearthed grub-worms. Lastly, I came upon the Provençal expression Cul-blanc, which is also a picturesque term, suggesting the patch on the bird’s rump which spreads out like a white butterfly flitting over the fields.