asps and bees. Here, without fear of being troubled by the passersby, I
could consult the Ammophila and the Sphex [two digger or hunting wasps]
and engage in that difficult conversation whose questions and answers
have experiment for their language; here, without distant expeditions
that take up my time, without tiring rambles that strain my nerves,
I could contrive my plans of attack, lay my ambushes and watch their
effects at every hour of the day. Hoc erat in votis. Yes, this was my
wish, my dream, always cherished, always vanishing into the mists of the
future.

And it is no easy matter to acquire a laboratory in the open fields,
when harassed by a terrible anxiety about one's daily bread. For forty
years have I fought, with steadfast courage, against the paltry plagues
of life; and the long-wished-for laboratory has come at last. What it
has cost me in perseverance and relentless work I will not try to say.
It has come; and, with it--a more serious condition--perhaps a little
leisure. I say perhaps, for my leg is still hampered with a few links of
the convict's chain.

The wish is realized. It is a little late, O my pretty insects! I
greatly fear that the peach is offered to me when I am beginning to
have no teeth wherewith to eat it. Yes, it is a little late: the wide
horizons of the outset have shrunk into a low and stifling canopy, more
and more straitened day by day. Regretting nothing in the past, save
those whom I have lost; regretting nothing, not even my first youth;
hoping nothing either, I have reached the point at which, worn out by
the experience of things, we ask ourselves if life be worth the living.

Amid the ruins that surround me, one strip of wall remains standing,
immovable upon its solid base: my passion for scientific truth. Is that
enough, O my busy insects, to enable me to add yet a few seemly pages
to your history? Will my strength not cheat my good intentions? Why,
indeed, did I forsake you so long? Friends have reproached me for it.
Ah, tell them, tell those friends, who are yours as well as mine,
tell them that it was not forgetfulness on my part, not weariness, nor
neglect: I thought of you; I was convinced that the Cerceris [a digger
wasp] cave had more fair secrets to reveal to us, that the chase of the
Sphex held fresh surprises in store. But time failed me; I was alone,
deserted, struggling against misfortune. Before philosophizing, one had
to live. Tell them that; and they will pa