The author of these essays was born at Sérignan, in Provence, in the year 1823, and was long in coming to his own. His birthday, indeed, is now celebrated annually (Henri Fabre is still alive) at both Sérignan and Orange; but, as Maurice Maeterlinck, writing of this “Insect’s Homer … whose brow should be girt with a double and radiant crown,” says:

“Fame is often forgetful, negligent, behindhand or unjust; and the crowd is almost ignorant of the name of J. H. Fabre, who is one of the most profound and inventive scholars and also one of the purest writers and, I was going to add, one of the finest poets of the century that is just past.”

Fabre’s Souvenirs Entomologiques form ten volumes, containing two to three hundred essays in all. The present book is a translation of the greater part of a volume of selected essays, comprising, in addition to those here presented, three that appeared in a volume entitled Insect Life and published ten years ago by Messrs. Macmillan, in a version from the able pen of [vi]the author of Mademoiselle Mori. This volume contained also the first of the four articles descriptive of the habits of the Sacred Beetle; and the publishers desire me to express their thanks to Messrs. Macmillan for permission to include in The Life and Love of the Insect a variant of that first chapter from Insect Life. The omission of three essays included in the French volume of selections explains the absence of reference to certain insects represented in some of the photographic plates.

I should like to mention my personal sense of gratitude to a gentleman belonging to a class of workers whose services are not always recognized in the manner which they deserve. I speak of Mr. Marmaduke Langdale, my untiring, eager and accurate “searcher,” whose work at both branches of the British Museum—to say nothing of his uncommonly thorough acquaintance with the French language—has greatly assisted me in my task of translation and saved me, I suspect, from making more than one blunder.

ALEXANDER TEIXEIRA DE MATTOS.

Chelsea, 11 July, 1911. [vii]