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The present volume contains all the essays on flies, or Diptera, from the Souvenirs entomologiques, to which I have added, in order to make the dimensions uniform with those of the other volumes of the series, the purely autobiographical essays comprised in the Souvenirs.
However this may be, the Bembex, returning to its burrow, is able to find it again with marvellous certainty, in spite of the care taken to hide it by removing every trace that might reveal its existence. It is guided by an extraordinary topographic instinct, which men not only do not possess, but cannot even understand the nature of. Souvenirs entomologiques, 1879, pp. 225 et seq.
But he was not one to speak of his troubles to the first comer; and it was only after the sixth volume of the "Souvenirs entomologiques" had appeared that his reserve was somewhat mitigated. Yet it was necessary that he should speak of these troubles, that he should tell everything; and, thanks to his conversation and his letters, I have been able to revive the past.
Everybody began to read him, and presently no one was willing to seem ignorant of him, for more of his "Souvenirs entomologiques" were sold in a few months than had been disposed of in more than twenty years. At last Fabre experienced not only glory and renown, but also popularity. This was only justice, for his is essentially a popular genius.
I followed one of these Coleoptera for more than five metres from the place where his labour began. After having deposited his ball he began to dig up the earth around it; but the mules had returned and I was obliged to depart. J. H. Fabre, Souvenirs entomologiques, 1879. In captivity also, as Mrs. Brightwen found, the Scarabæus always attempts to bury its ball in the earth.
See also: Blanchard's Metamorphoses des Insectes, Paris, 1868; J.H. Fabre's Souvenirs entomologiques, Paris, 1886; Ebrard's Etudes des moeurs des fourmis, Geneve, 1864; Sir John Lubbock's Ants, Bees, and Wasps, and so on. Forel's Recherches, pp. 244, 275, 278. Huber's description of the process is admirable. The agriculture of the ants is so wonderful that for a long time it has been doubted.
It is, says Fabre, almost like the movement of a machine of which the wheelwork will not act until one has begun to turn the wheel which directs it. J. H. Fabre, Souvenirs entomologiques, Paris, 1879, pp. 275 et seq.
Yet the marvellous edifice of the "Souvenirs entomologiques" is consummated by the astonishing history of the Minotaur, whose habits surpass in ideal beauty all that could be imagined.
At the end of the year 1878 he was able to assemble a sufficient number of studies to form material for what was to be the first volume of his "Souvenirs entomologiques." Let us stop for a moment to consider this first book, whose publication constitutes a truly historical date, not only in the career of Fabre, but in the annals of universal science.
J. H. Fabre, Souvenirs entomologiques, pp. 225 et seq. "Étude sur l'Instinct du Cerceris ornata," Archives de Zoologie expérimentale, ii. Série, t. 5, 1887.
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