burrows, not to tread upon the miner absorbed in her work. It is
quite a quarter of a century since I last saw the saucy cricket
hunter. When I made her acquaintance, I used to visit her at a
few miles' distance: each time, it meant an expedition under the
blazing August sun. Today, I find her at my door; we are intimate
neighbors. The embrasure of the closed window provides an
apartment of a mild temperature for the Pelopaeus [a mason wasp].
The earth-built nest is fixed against the freestone wall. To
enter her home, the spider huntress uses a little hole left open
by accident in the shutters. On the moldings of the Venetian
blinds, a few stray mason bees build their group of cells; inside
the outer shutters, left ajar, a Eumenes [a mason wasp] constructs
her little earthen dome, surmounted by a short, bell-mouthed neck.
The common wasp and the Polistes [a solitary wasp] are my dinner
guests: they visit my table to see if the grapes served are as
ripe as they look.

Here, surely--and the list is far from complete--is a company both
numerous and select, whose conversation will not fail to charm my
solitude, if I succeed in drawing it out. My dear beasts of
former days, my old friends, and others, more recent
acquaintances, all are here, hunting, foraging, building in close
proximity. Besides, should we wish to vary the scene of
observation, the mountain [Ventoux] is but a few hundred steps
away, with its tangle of arbutus, rock roses and arborescent
heather; with its sandy spaces dear to the Bembeces; with its
marly slopes exploited by different wasps and bees. And that is
why, foreseeing these riches, I have abandoned the town for the
village and come to Serignan to weed my turnips and water my
lettuces.