consume them. I allow myself to be convinced by the logic of it
all; I already see in my mind's eye the wee animal coming out of
the egg, endowed with sufficient power of motion not to dread a
walk and with sufficient slenderness to glide into the smallest
crevices. Once in the presence of the larva on which it is to
feed, it doffs its travelling dress and becomes the obese animal
whose one duty it is to grow big and fat in immobility. This is
all very coherent; it is all deduced like a geometrical
proposition. But to the wings of imagination, however smooth their
flight, we must prefer the sandals of observed facts, the slow
sandals with the leaden soles. Thus shod, I proceed.

Next year, I resume my investigations, this time on the Anthrax of
the Chalicodoma, who is my neighbor in the surrounding wastelands
and will allow me to repeat my visits daily, morning and evening if
need be. Taught by my earlier studies, I now know the exact period
of the Bee's hatching and therefore of the Anthrax' laying, which
must take place soon after. Anthrax trifasciata settles her family
in July, or in August at latest. Every morning, at nine o'clock,
when the heat begins to be unendurable and when, to use [the
author's gardener and factotum] Favier's expression, an extra log
is flung on the bonfire of the sun, I take the field, prepared to
come back with my head aching from the glare, provided that I bring
home the solution of my puzzle. A man must have the devil in him
to leave the shade at this time of the year. And what for, pray?
To write the story of a fly! The greater the heat, the better my
chance of success. What causes me to suffer torture fills the
insect with delight; what prostrates me braces the fly. Come
along!