[48] The highest mountain (6,270 feet) in the neighbourhood of Sérignan. Cf. The Hunting Wasps: chap. xi.—Translator’s Note. [49] M. Bellot, forest-ranger of Beaumont (Vaucluse).—Author’s Note. [50] .195 to .234 inch.—Translator’s Note. [51] .039 inch.—Translator’s Note. [52] This essay was written prior to that on the Grey Flesh-flies, who employ a similar method. Cf. The Life of the Fly: chap. x.—Translator’s Note. [53] “Beneath the shade which beechen boughs diffuse, You, Tityrus, entertain your sylvan muse. . . . . . . . These blessings friend, a deity bestowed: . . . . . . . He gave my kine to graze the flowery plain And to my pipe renewed the rural strain.” —Pastorals: book i.; Dryden’s translation. [54] Georges Louis Leclerc de Buffon (1707–1788), the foremost French naturalist and one of the foremost French writers, though his style, as Fabre rightly suggests, was nothing less than pompous. He was the originator, in the speech delivered at his reception into the French academy, of the famous aphorism, “Le style est l’homme même.”—Translator’s Note. [55] Cf. Social Life in the Insect World, by J. H. Fabre, translated by Bernard Miall: chap. xxi.—Translator’s Note. [56] A Dung-beetle. Cf. The Life and Love of the Insect: chap. v.—Translator’s Note. [57] Cf. The Life of the Caterpillar, by J. Henri Fabre, translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chap. xiii.—Translator’s Note. [58] The 14th of July, the anniversary of the fall of the Bastille.—Translator’s Note. [59] The order of insects comprising the Grasshoppers, Locusts, Crickets, Cockroaches, Mantes and Earwigs. The Cicada, with whom the present volume opens, and the Foamy Cicadella, with whom it closes, belong to the order of Homoptera.—Translator’s Note. [60] The author was obviously thinking of the Englishman’s saddle of mutton and red-currant jelly. The mistake has been repeated much nearer to these shores. I have in mind the true story of an Irish king’s counsel singing the praises of another, still among us, who had married an English wife and who, in the course of an extensive practice in the House of Lords, spent much of his time in England: “Ah, —— —— is a real gentleman! He speaks with an English accent, quotes Euripides in the original Latin and takes jam with his meat.” I venture to think that Fabre, in the gentleness of his heart, would have forgiven his translator for quoting this flippant anecdote. I have no other excuse.—Translator’s Note. [61] .117 to .156 inch.—Translator’s Note. [62] Fuller details on this curious subject would be out of place in a book in which anatomy and physiology cannot always speak quite freely. They will be found in my essay on the Locustidæ which appeared in the Annales des sciences naturelles, 1896.—Author’s Note.