and all the hymenoptera which Fabre has observed sleeping at the fall of
night, "suspended in space solely by the strength of their mandibles, their
bodies tense, their limbs retracted, without exhaustion or collapse"; and
the larva of the Empusa, "which for some ten months hangs to a twig by its
limbs, head downwards": do not these present a surprising analogy with
those hypnotized persons who possess the faculty of remaining fixed in the
most painful poses, and of supporting the most unusual attitudes, for an
extremely long time; for instance, with one arm extended, or one foot
raised from the ground, without appearing to experience the least fatigue,
and with a persevering and unfaltering energy? (7/10.)

That the ex-schoolmaster was able to penetrate so far into this new world,
and that he has been able to interest us in so many fascinating problems,
was due to the fact that he had also "taken a wide bird's-eye view through
all the windows of creation." His universal capabilities, his immense
culture and almost encyclopaedic science have enabled him to utilize,
thanks to his studies, all the knowledge allied to his subject. He is not
one of those who understand only their speciality and who, knowing nothing
outside their own province and their particular labours, refuse to grasp at
anything beyond the narrow limits within which they stand installed.

All plants are to him so familiar that the flowers, for him, assume the
airs of living persons. But without a profound knowledge of botany, who
would hope to grasp the profound, perpetual, and intimate relations of the
plant and the insect?

He has turned over strata and interrogated the schistous deposits, whose
archives preserve the forms of vanished organizations, but "keep silence as
to the origin of the instincts." Bending over his reagents, he has sought
to discover, according to the phrase of a philosopher, those secret