Note 2 — Chapter X · THE PROFESSOR: AVIGNON (1852–1870)

Whether at home or abroad, whether passing along the public highway or visiting a friend, it was enough for an insect to appear to capture and retain his attention without regard for the circumstances and without a thought as to what might be said of him. On one occasion a Pelopæus, that is, a Potter-wasp (πηλοποίος) holding her pellet of mud in her jaws, came to his fireside one washing-day, seeking access to the nest which she was building behind the breast of the fireplace. More anxious about the Wasp than about the washing, he controlled the fire so that it should not too greatly incommode the little mason by eddies of smoke or flame, and for two good hours he followed the coming and going of the Pelopæus, and the progress of her nest-building. This was in the early days of his Avignon professorship.2