Note 7 — Chapter vi · THE LARVA AND THE NYMPH

You pretty Sphex-wasps hatched before my eyes, brought up by my hand, ration by ration, on a bed of sand in an old quill-box; you whose transformations I have followed step by step, starting up from my sleep in alarm lest I should have missed the moment when the nymph is bursting its swaddling-bands or the wing leaving its case; you who have taught me so much and learned nothing yourselves, knowing without teachers all that you have to know: O my pretty Sphex-wasps, fly away without fear of my tubes, my boxes, my bottles, or any of my receptacles, through this warm sunlight beloved of the Cicadæ;7 go, but beware of the Praying Mantis,8 who is plotting your ruin on the flowering heads of the thistles, and mind the Lizard, who is lying in wait for you on the sunny slopes; go in peace, dig your burrows, stab your Crickets scientifically and continue your kind, to procure one day for others what you have given me: the few moments of happiness in my life!