too thankful. But I will stop, for I feel my enthusiasm is going to my
head, and my reasons are so good already that I have no need of still more
triumphant reasons to convince you." (2/8.)

He had only one passion: shooting; more especially the shooting of larks.
This sport delighted him, "with the mirror darting its intermittent beams
under the rays of the morning sun amid the general scintillation of the
dewdrops and crystals of hoarfrost hanging on every blade of grass." (2/9.)

His sight was admirably sure, and he rarely missed his aim. His passion for
shooting was always sustained by the same motive: the desire to acquire
fresh knowledge; to examine unknown creatures close at hand; to discover
what they ate and how they lived.

Later, when he again took up his gun, it was still because of his love of
life: it was to enable him to enumerate, inventory, and interrogate his new
compatriots, his feathered fellow-citizens of Sérignan; to inform himself
of their diet, to reveal the contents of their crops and gizzards.

At one time he suddenly ceased to employ this distraction; he seems to have
sacrificed it easily, under the stress of present necessities and cruel
anxieties as to his uncertain future. "When we do not know where we shall
be tomorrow nothing can distract us." (2/10.)

His responsibilities were increasing. He had lately married. On the 30th
October, 1844, he was wedded to a young girl of Carpentras, Marie Villard,
and already a child was born. His parents, always unlucky, met nowhere with
any success. By dint of many wanderings they had finally become stranded at
Pierrelatte, the chief town of the canton of La Drôme, sheltered by the
great rock which has given the place its name; and there again, of course,