The Sisyphus of the naturalists knows none of these bitter trials. Untroubled by the steep slopes, he gaily trundles his load, at one time bread for himself, at another for his children. He is very scarce in these parts; and I should never have managed to procure a suitable number of subjects for my purpose, but for an assistant whom I ought to present to the reader, for he will play his part more than once in these narratives. I speak of my son Paul, a little chap of seven. My assiduous companion on my hunting-expeditions, he knows better than any one of his age the secrets of the Cicada, the Locust, the Cricket and especially the Dung-beetle, his great delight. Twenty paces away, his sharp eyes will distinguish the real mound that marks a burrow from casual heaps of earth; his delicate ears catch the Grasshopper’s faint stridulation, which to me remains silence. He lends me his sight and hearing; and I, in exchange, present him with ideas, which he receives attentively, raising wide, blue, questioning eyes to mine. Oh, what an adorable thing is the first blossoming of the intellect; what a beautiful age is that when innocent curiosity awakens, enquiring into all things! So little Paul has his own vivarium, in which the Sacred Beetle makes pears for him; his own little garden, no larger than a pocket-handkerchief, where he grows beans, often digging them up to see if the tiny roots are growing longer; his forest plantation, in which stand four oaks a hand’s-breadth high, still furnished on one side with the twin-breasted acorn that feeds them. It all makes a welcome change from dry grammar, which gets on none the worse for it. What beautiful and delightful things natural history could put into children’s heads if science would but stoop to charm the young; if our barracks of colleges would but add the living study of the fields to the lifeless study of books; if the red tape of the curriculum beloved by bureaucrats did not strangle any eager initiative! Little Paul, my boy, let us study as much as we can in the open country, among the rosemary- and arbutus-shrubs. By so doing, we shall gain in vigour of body and mind; we shall find more of the true and the beautiful than in any old musty books.