explored with many drag nets; the soil which we tread is
consistently disregarded. While waiting for the fashion to
change, I open my harmas laboratory of living entomology; and this
laboratory shall not cost the ratepayers one farthing.




CHAPTER II THE ANTHRAX

I made the acquaintance of the Anthrax in 1855 at Carpentras, at
the time when the life history of the oil beetles was causing me
to search the tall slopes beloved of the Anthophora bees [mason
bees]. Her curious pupae, so powerfully equipped to force an
outlet for the perfect insect incapable of the least effort, those
pupae armed with a multiple plowshare at the fore, a trident at
the rear and rows of harpoons on the back wherewith to rip open
the Osmia bee's cocoon and break through the hard crust of the
hillside, betokened a field that was worth cultivating. The
little that I said about her at the time brought me urgent
entreaties: I was asked for a circumstantial chapter on the
strange fly. The stern necessities of life postponed to an ever
retreating future my beloved investigations, so miserably stifled.
Thirty years have passed; at last, a little leisure is at hand;
and here, in the harmas of my village, with an ardor that has in
no wise grown old, I have resumed my plans of yore, still alive
like the coal smoldering under the ashes. The Anthrax has told me
her secrets, which I in my turn am going to divulge. Would that I
could address all those who cheered me on this path, including
first and foremost the revered Master of the Landes [Leon Dufour].