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 Keatings: Ethical and Legal Issues in Canadian Nursing, 3rd Edition
Chapter 7: The Nurse’s Legal Accountabilities

Test Bank

MULTIPLE CHOICE

1. Which of the following describes an employer’s responsibility in relation to the standard

of care?
a. To address the effects of nurse absenteeism on patient care
b. To evaluate all nurses on an annual basis to ensure that they are meeting standards
c. To implement an improvement plan for nurses who do not meet standards
d. To ask for expert nurses who exceed standards to mentor other nurses
ANS: C
Correct C: Employers have a common law duty to take active steps to ensure that nurses
falling short of a standard receive the appropriate improvement plan. The employer may
be liable otherwise.

Incorrect A: This does not relate to the employer’s responsibility regarding the standard
of care.
Incorrect B: Annual evaluation is not only the responsibility of the employer; nurses are
also accountable and have the responsibility to regularly self-evaluate.
Incorrect D: This does not relate to the employer’s responsibility regarding the standard
of care.

DIF: Cognitive level: Synthesis REF: p. 208

2. Which of the following is the best example of an intentional tort?

a. A nurse assaults a patient.
b. A nurse makes a medication error, resulting in an adverse reaction in the patient.
c. A nurse is abusing substances while at work.
d. A nurse accidentally runs a commode over and bruises a patient’s foot.
ANS: A
Correct A: An intentional tort is a civil wrong committed against one person by another
who intends the action that causes injury or damage to either the victim or the victim’s
property. A nurse who assaults a patient is committing an intentional tort.

Incorrect B: This is a nonintentional tort and may constitute negligence.

Incorrect C: This could be related to a medical issue or possibly an illness on the part of
the nurse and is not relevant.
Incorrect D: This event was unintentional and did not cause serious damage; it is not a
tort.

DIF: Cognitive level: Analysis REF: p. 194

Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Canada, a division of Reed Elsevier Canada, Ltd.

 Test Bank 7-2

3. In order to prove negligence, which three elements must be present?

a. Duty of care is owed, duty of care is breached, damage is a direct result
b. Duty of care is breached, indirect damage is present, duty of care is owed
c. Duty of care is breached, damage is a direct result, damage is permanent
d. Duty of care is breached, indirect damage results, damage is permanent
ANS: A
Correct A: First, the defendant must owe a duty of care in law toward the plaintiff.
Second, the defendant must have breached that duty and failed to discharge the standard
of care required by law in the particular situation. Third, the plaintiff must have suffered
damage or harm caused by the defendant’s breach of the duty of care.

Incorrect B: This is not the correct sequence of elements.

Incorrect C: This is not the correct sequence of elements.
Incorrect D: This is not the correct sequence of elements.

DIF: Cognitive level: Analysis REF: p. 196

4. A nurse whose lack of actions demonstrates disregard for the lives or safety of others is
liable for which of the following?
a. Criminal incompetence
b. Statutory negligence
c. Professional malpractice
d. Criminal negligence
ANS: D
Correct D: This nurse is liable for criminal negligence. If a nurse fails to perform some
act that is part of her nursing procedures and duties and someone dies or suffers serious
bodily harm as a result, the omission in care may constitute a criminal offense.

Incorrect A: Criminal incompetence is not recognized terminology.

Incorrect B: Statutory negligence is not recognized terminology.
Incorrect C: Malpractice (negligence by a professional) is not necessarily criminal; it
involves performing lawful acts in a careless manner, which may not involve misconduct.

DIF: Cognitive level: Analysis REF: p. 210

5. Which of the following may a nursing expert witness be called to a trial to do?
a. To interpret the health care record
b. To interpret the educational qualifications of the nurse in question
c. To present regulatory body standards
d. To describe previous malpractice incidents regarding the nurse in question
ANS: A
Correct A: Nursing experts are called as witnesses to interpret the health care record and
assist the court in reconstructing the events and drawing inferences.

Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Canada, a division of Reed Elsevier Canada, Ltd.

 Test Bank 7-3

Incorrect B: If a nurse is registered he is presumed to be competent, so educational

qualifications are not the issue.
Incorrect C: This is not applicable for an expert witness; however, the witness may
describe what a reasonable and prudent nurse would do in a similar situation.
Incorrect D: This is not applicable.

DIF: Cognitive level: Synthesis REF: p. 216

6. How do the courts determine if a nurse’s conduct has been negligent?

a. The standard of care is used as an objective measure.
b. The professional standards are used as a subjective measure.
c. Only an appellate court can determine this.
d. This would go before a disciplinary review board, not the courts.
ANS: A
The standard of care is what a reasonably competent professional would do in a similar
situation. If a defendant’s conduct is seen as having fallen below this standard, a court
may find that defendant’s conduct to be negligent.

Incorrect B: Professional standards may be used to support a case but cannot be used to
determine negligence.
Incorrect C: The type of court is irrelevant in this situation.
Incorrect D: Cases of misconduct, incompetence, and negligence may all be heard by a
review board; however, negligence would also be judged by the courts if the nurse was
involved in a lawsuit.

DIF: Cognitive level: Comprehension REF: p. 202

TRUE/FALSE

1. Failing to meet a standard of practice of the nursing profession would be called

malpractice.

ANS: F
Correct: Failing to meet a standard of practice of the nursing profession would be called
professional misconduct. Malpractice involves performing lawful acts in a careless
manner or in a manner that does not conform to a generally recognized practice standard
or standard of care in the nursing profession.

Incorrect: This is not a true statement.

DIF: Cognitive level: Synthesis REF: pp. 189–190

2. A nurse who performs a procedure beyond her level of skill and ability would be
considered incompetent.

ANS: F
Correct: The nurse would be considered negligent, not incompetent.

Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Canada, a division of Reed Elsevier Canada, Ltd.

 Test Bank 7-4

Incorrect: This is not a true statement.

DIF: Cognitive level: Synthesis REF: p. 196

3. An assault occurs when a person intentionally threatens another person with imminent
harm.

ANS: T
Correct: Assault is the intentional threat of imminent harm. Actual physical contact is not
necessary to prove assault.

Incorrect: This statement is true.

DIF: Cognitive level: Knowledge REF: p. 195

4. The nurse’s duty of care to patients and clients is based on professional standards of care.

ANS: T
Correct: Nurses owe a duty of care to patients and clients to act in a competent and
diligent manner according to the standard of the reasonably competent nurse.

Incorrect: This statement is true.

DIF: Cognitive level: Knowledge REF: p. 197

5. In a case where a nurse’s conduct is in question, the standard of care used in court would
be the actions of a reasonably competent nurse in similar circumstances.

ANS: T
Correct: The standard of care is what a reasonably competent professional would do in a
similar situation. The nurse is legally required to operate and act at a level that meets or
exceeds the standard of care of a reasonably prudent caregiver or health care professional.

Incorrect: This statement is true.

DIF: Cognitive level: Knowledge REF: pp. 202, 205

6. Contributory negligence means that the patient, as the plaintiff, is partly responsible for
the harm she suffered.

ANS: T
Correct: Contributory negligence means that the patient, as the plaintiff, is found to be
partly at fault for the harm she suffered. In all common law provinces and territories, the
patient may still recover damages from the defendant even if the patient is in some way
responsible.

Incorrect: This statement is true.

Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Canada, a division of Reed Elsevier Canada, Ltd.

Test Bank 7-5

DIF: Cognitive level: Knowledge REF: pp. 203–204

Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Canada, a division of Reed Elsevier Canada, Ltd.

Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
I have [writes Fabre] wished for a few things in my life, none
of them capable of interfering with the common weal. I have
longed to possess a pond, screened from the indiscretion of
the passers-by, close to my house, with clumps of rushes and
patches of duckweed. There, in my leisure hours, in the
shade of a willow, I should have meditated upon aquatic life, a
primitive life, easier than our own, simpler in its affections and
its brutalities. I should have studied the eggs of the Planorbis,
a glairy nebula wherein foci of life are [218]condensed even as
suns are condensed in the nebulæ of the heavens. I should
have admired the nascent creature that turns, slowly turns, in
the orb of its egg and describes a volute, the draft perhaps of
the future shell. No planet circles round its centre of attraction
with greater geometrical accuracy.

I should have brought back a few ideas from my frequent

visits to the pond. Fate decided otherwise: I was not to have
my sheet of water. I have tried the artificial pond, between
four panes of glass. A poor makeshift!

A louis has been overlooked in a corner of a drawer. I can

spend it without seriously jeopardising the domestic balance.
The blacksmith makes me the framework of a cage out of a
few iron rods. The joiner, who is also a glazier on occasion—
for, in my village, you have to be a Jack-of-all trades if you
would make both ends meet—sets the framework on a
wooden base and supplies it with a movable board as a lid;
he fixes thick panes of glass in the four sides. Behold the
apparatus, complete, with a bottom of tarred sheet-iron and a
tap to let the water out. Many an inquisitive caller has
wondered what use I intend to make of my little glass trough.
The thing creates a certain stir. Some insist that it is meant to
hold my supplies of oil and to take the place of the receptacle
in general use in our parts, the urn dug out of a block of
stone. What would those utilitarians have thought of my crazy
mind, had they known that my costly gear would merely
 [219]serveto let me watch some wretched animals kicking
about in the water? 4

The delight of my earliest childhood, the pond, is still a

spectacle of which my old age can never tire.

But even with all the visions which it evokes, how far
inferior is the “pond” of Sérignan to the pond of Saint-
Léons, “the pond with the little ducks on it, so rich in
illusions! Such a pond is not met with twice in a
lifetime. One needs to be equipped with one’s first
pair of breeches and one’s earliest ideas in order to
have such luck!” 5

In spring, with the hawthorn in flower and the Crickets at their

concerts, a second wish often came to me. Beside the road I
light upon a dead Mole, a Snake killed with a stone, victims
both of human folly. The two corpses, already decomposing,
have begun to smell. Whoso approaches with eyes that do
not see turns away his head and passes on. The observer
stops and lifts the remains with his foot; he looks. A world is
swarming underneath; life is eagerly consuming the dead. Let
us replace matters as they were and leave death’s artisans to
their task. They are engaged in a most deserving work. [220]

To know the habits of those creatures charged with the

disappearance of corpses, to see them busy at their work of
disintegration, to follow in detail the process of transmutation
that makes the ruins of what has lived return apace into life’s
treasure-house: these are things that long haunted my mind. I
regretfully left the Mole lying in the dust of the road. I had to
go, after a glance at the corpse and its harvesters. It was not
 the place for philosophising over a stench. What would people
say who passed and saw me!

I am now in a position to realise my second wish. I have

space, air, and quiet in the solitude of the harmas. None will
come here to trouble me, to smile or to be shocked at my
investigations. So far, so good; but observe the irony of
things: now that I am rid of passers-by, I have to fear my cats,
those assiduous prowlers, who, finding my preparations, will
not fail to spoil and scatter them. In anticipation of their
misdeeds, I establish workshops in mid-air, whither none but
genuine corruption-agents can come, flying on their wings. At
different points in the enclosure, I plant reeds, three by three,
which, tied at their free ends, form a stable tripod. From each
of these supports I hang, at a man’s height, an earthenware
pan filled with fine sand and pierced at the bottom with a hole
to allow the water to escape, if it should rain. I garnish my
apparatus with dead bodies. The Snake, the Lizard, the Toad
receive the preference, because of their bare skins, which
enable me better to follow the first attack and the work of the
invaders. [221]I ring the changes with furred and feathered
beasts. A few children of the neighbourhood, allured by
pennies, are my regular purveyors. Throughout the good
season they come running triumphantly to my door, with a
Snake at the end of a stick, or a Lizard in a cabbage-leaf.
They bring me the Rat caught in a trap, the Chicken dead of
the pip, the Mole slain by the gardener, the Kitten killed by
accident, the Rabbit poisoned by some weed. The business
proceeds to the mutual satisfaction of sellers and buyer. No
such trade had ever been known before in the village, nor
ever will be again. 6

Yet despite all his inventions Fabre had no illusion as

to their value. He well knew that art cannot replace
nature who said, speaking of his glass-walled “pond,”
the aquarium of which he seemed so proud: “A poor
makeshift, after all!” You may think that he is
reverting to his childhood and that he will tell us
again of the pond with its ducklings. But he tells us
something far better:

“Not all our laboratory aquaria are worth the print left
in the clay by the shoe of a mule, when a shower has
filled the humble [222]basin and life has peopled it with
her marvels.” 7

Who but he could have found such a pearl in this

clay? [223]

1 Fabre, Poet of Science, G. V. Legros, pp. 108–115. ↑

2 The country round Sérignan, in Provence.—A. T. de M. ↑
3 Souvenirs, II., pp. 1–8. The Life of the Fly, chap. i., “The Harmas.” ↑
4 Souvenirs, VII., pp. 270–273. The Life of the Fly, chap. vii., “The Pond.” ↑
5 Ibid., VII., 260–270. ↑
6 Souvenirs, VIII., 278–280, 255–295. The Life of the Fly, chap. v., “The
Greenbottles”; The Mason-wasps, chap. ix., “Insect Geometry”; The Life of the
Fly, chap. ix., “The Grey Flesh-Flies.” ↑
7 Souvenirs, VIII., p. 228. The Life of the Fly, chap. ix., “The Greenbottles.” ↑
[Contents]
CHAPTER XV
 THE HERMIT OF SÉRIGNAN
(CONTINUED)
While the domain of the landowner and manufacturer
ended at the walls of his field of pebbles and
botanical garden, that of the entomologist extended
far beyond them, as far as his eyes could see and his
steps lead him.

For this reason a panoramic view of the surrounding

country is desirable.

With its peaceful plains, its gracious hills, overgrown

with strawberry-tree and ilex, and the sublime
mountain of Provence rising upon the horizon, with
its varied outlines and its sun-illumined flanks, the
Sérignan landscape gently forces itself upon the
spectator’s attention. And if the spirit moved him,
Fabre had only to raise his head from his apparatus
to find all about him something to soothe the eye and
refresh the mind.

But however keen his feeling for the beauties of

Nature, it is not so much as artist or dilettante but as
the insect historiographer that he appreciates the
value of the landscape, [224]and the wealth of the
plains and hills outspread before him.

From this point of view the whole surroundings of his

hermitage seem as though created to continue and
complete the harmas, and the scientific pleasures
which this affords him.

The Gymnopleuri abound in the pebbly plains of the

neighbourhood, where the sheep pass amid the lavender and
thyme; and, should we wish to vary the scene of observation,
the mountain 1 is but a few hundred steps away, with its tangle
of arbutus, rock-roses, and arborescent heather; with its
sandy spaces dear to the Bembeces; with its marly slopes
exploited by different Wasps and Bees.

We have already made mention of the Aygues, and

the time has come to pay it a formal visit, as one of
the favourite haunts of the Sérignan hermit:

The geographers define the Aygues as a watercourse. As an

eye-witness I should call it rather a stream of flat pebbles.
Understand me: I do not mean that the dry pebbles flow of
their own accord; the feeble incline would not permit of such
an avalanche. But let it rain: then they will flow. Then, from my
home, which is more than a mile distant, I hear the uproar of
the clashing pebbles. [225]

During the greater part of the year the Aygues is a vast sheet
of flat white stones; of the torrent only the bed is left, a furrow
of enormous width, comparable to that of its mighty
neighbour, the Rhône. When persistent rains fall, when the
snows melt on the slopes of the Alps, the dry furrow fills for a
few days, complaining, overflowing to a great distance, and
displacing, amid the uproar, its pebbly banks. Return a week
later: the din of the flood is succeeded by silence. The terrible
waters have disappeared, leaving on the banks, as a trace of
their brief passage, some wretched muddy puddles quickly
drunk up by the sun.

These sudden floods bring a thousand living gleanings, swept

off the flanks of the mountains. The dry bed of the Aygues is a
most curious botanical garden. You may find there numbers of
vegetable species swept down from the higher regions, some
temporary, dying without offspring in a season, others
permanent, adapting themselves to the new climate. They
come from far away from a great height, these exiles; to pluck
certain of them in their actual home you would have to climb
Ventoux, passing the girdle of beeches and reaching the
height at which woody vegetation ceases.

An insect which is sometimes found by chance in the osier-

beds of the Aygues, and is by itself worth the journey, is the
Apoderus of the hazel-tree.

It tells us also many things, this little red Weevil “from the
heights rich in hazel-bushes” [226]and carried by the storm into
the alder-thickets of the Aygues.

It reminds us, too, of that other emigrant, whose intimate

acquaintance it has become.

And we are touched by the analogy between its fate and his
own. Fabre too was a child of the heights rich in hazel-
bushes. 2 He too had to leave the place of his birth, carried
away by the storm that tore him from the bosom of his native
mountains to bear him into the plains of Provence. He too
made the voyage with very poor and very fragile equipment.
For a long time, terribly tossed by the waves, he was more
than once sorely bruised, but was yet not broken upon the
stones of the torrent; more than once he was whirled
suddenly round, but he nevertheless continued to pursue his
aim, and finally he pierced the husk and emerged from the
shell, to give his activity free scope, as soon as he was able
to free himself and establish his lot in a favourable
environment.

However, contrary to what occurs in the case of the

Apoderus, the conditions of his life seem [227]to have been
modified as profoundly as those of his geographical habitat;
they became perhaps even further removed from those of his
origin and his forebears. We know what his paternal
ancestors were, and that they had no intimate knowledge of
the insect world. His mother’s people were equally regardless
of and devoid of affection for the little creatures that so
absorbed and delighted him. 3

I did not know my maternal grandfather. This venerable

ancestor was, I have been told, a process-server in one of the
poorest parishes of the Rouergue. 4 He used to engross on
stamped paper in a primitive spelling. With his well-filled pen-
case and ink-horn, he went drawing out deeds up hill and
down dale, from one insolvent wretch to another more
insolvent still. Amid his atmosphere of pettifoggery, this
rudimentary scholar, waging battle on life’s acerbities,
certainly paid no attention to the insect; at most, if he met it,
he would crush it under foot. The unknown animal, suspected
of evil-doing, deserved no further inquiry. Grandmother, on
her side, apart from her house-keeping and her beads, knew
still less about anything. She looked on the alphabet as a set
of hieroglyphics only fit to spoil your sight for nothing, unless
you were scribbling on paper bearing [228]the government
stamp. Who in the world, in her day among the small folk,
dreamt of knowing how to read and write? That luxury was
reserved for the attorney, who himself made but a sparing use
of it. The insect, I need hardly say, was the least of her cares.
If sometimes, when rinsing her salad at the tap, she found a
Caterpillar on the lettuce-leaves, with a start of fright she
would fling the loathsome thing away, thus cutting short
relations reputed dangerous. In brief, to both my maternal
grandparents the insect was a creature of no interest
whatever and almost always a repulsive object, which one
dared not touch with the tip of one’s finger. Beyond a doubt,
my taste for animals was not derived from them. Nor from
either of my own parents. My mother, who was quite illiterate,
having known no teacher but the bitter experience of a
harassed life, was the exact opposite of what my tastes
required for their development. My peculiarity must seek its
origin elsewhere; that I will swear.

Nor shall I find it in my father. The excellent man, who was

hard-working and sturdily-built like grandad, had been to
school as a child. He knew how to write, though he took the
greatest liberties with spelling; he knew how to read and
understood what he read, provided the reading presented no
more serious literary difficulties than occurred in the stories in
the almanack. He was the first of his line to allow himself to
be tempted by the town, and he lived to regret it. Badly off,
having but little outlet for his industry, making [229]God knows
what shifts to pick up a livelihood, 5 he went through all the
disappointments of the countryman turned townsman.
Persecuted by bad luck, borne down by the burden for all his
energy and good will, he was far indeed from starting me in
entomology. He had other cares, cares more direct and more
serious. A good cuff or two when he saw me pinning an insect
to a cork was all the encouragement that I received from him.
Perhaps he was right.

The conclusion is positive: there is nothing in heredity to

explain my taste for observation. You may say that I do not go
 far enough back. Well, what should I find beyond the
grandparents where my facts come to a stop? I know, partly. I
should find even more uncultured ancestors: sons of the soil,
ploughmen, sowers of rye, neat-herds; one and all, by the
very force of things, of not the least account in the nice
matters of observation. 6

Between the parents and the son, what a difference,

what a change of life and of destiny! Quantum
mutatus ab illis! This, no doubt, is the first thing to
strike one; and here, too, we have one of the most
salient features of the superiority of the human
intelligence; this almost infinite possibility of
[230]transformation and progress, which forms such a

striking contrast with the rigid immutability of instinct

which is barely susceptible of the slightest variation.

But for all this Fabre still bears the stamp of the soil
and of his ancestry, and I am certain that the pagès
of the banks of the Viaur, were they to descend to the
banks of the Aygues to visit the hermit of Sérignan,
would recognise by more than one characteristic the
child of their native soil and their own race. Under his
wide felt hat, “in his linen jacket” 7 and his heavy
shoes, with a face like theirs in its simplicity and good
nature, he would see almost one of themselves. And
if, after entering his home, they were to follow him
into the enclosure, among his crops and his
appliances, if they were to see him valiantly digging
up the soil of the harmas in search of fresh burrows
of the Scarabæi, or assembling a few thick planks to
contrive some new entomological apparatus, or
simply beating the brushwood over his inverted
umbrella in search of insects, they would certainly be
tempted to join in and lend him a hand as though
dealing with a fellow-labourer.

Others may be surprised to find in the [231]scholar and

scientist the features and the manners of a peasant.
Let us rather rejoice to see that our eminent fellow-
countryman has never renounced the simplicity of his
origins, and take pleasure in noting how closely the
hermit of Sérignan resembles the urchin of Malaval.

We have attempted to show the hermit of Sérignan in

his own setting, as he really is. It remains for us to
see how he glorifies his solitude and ennobles his
rustic life; how the poor, simple peasant whom he
has always been has done more for science than the
most elegantly dressed and profusely decorated
savants. [232]

1 Mont Ventoux, an outlying summit of the Alps, 6270 feet high. Cf. Insect Life,
chap. xiii.—A. T. de M. ↑
2 Fabre lived the first years of his life (cf. chap. i.) on the mountains of Lavaysse,
which are almost of the birth and bifurcation of the two ranges of the Levezon
and the Palanger. In the language of his country La Vaysse, pronounced Lo
Baïsso, means “the hazel-bush.”
An alien zoology too is represented in the osier-beds of the Aygues, whose peace
is never disturbed save in freshets of exceptional duration. The wild spates of the
Aygues bring into our countryside and strand in the osier-thickets the largest of our
Snails, the glory of Burgundy, Helix pramatias. ↑
3 Souvenirs, VI., pp. 26–37, 42. The Life of the Fly, chap. v., “Heredity.” ↑
4 A district of the province of Guienne, having Rodez for its capital. The author’s
maternal grandfather, Salgues by name, was the huissier, or, as we should say,
sheriff’s officer, of Saint-Léons.—A. T. de M. ↑
5 The author’s father kept a café at Pierrelatte and other small towns in the south
of France.—A. T. de M. ↑
6 Souvenirs, VI., pp. 26–37, 42. The Life of the Fly, chap. v., “Heredity.” ↑
7 Fabre had a sort of natural horror of luxury. ↑
[Contents]
CHAPTER XVI
 THE HERMIT OF SÉRIGNAN
(CONTINUED)
Oh, if you could now observe at your ease, in the quiet of your
study, with nothing to distract your mind from your subject, far
from the profane wayfarer who, seeing you so busily occupied
at a spot where he sees nothing, will stop, overwhelm you
with queries, take you for some water-diviner, or—a graver
suspicion this—regard you as some questionable character
searching for buried treasure and discovering by means of
incantations where the old pots full of coin lie hidden! Should
you still wear a Christian aspect in his eyes, he will approach
you, look to see what you are looking at, and smile in a
manner that leaves no doubt as to his poor opinion of people
who spend their time in watching Flies. You will be lucky
indeed if the troublesome visitor, with his tongue in his cheek,
walks off at last without disturbing things and without
repeating in his innocence the disaster brought about by my
two conscripts’ boots.

Should your inexplicable doings not puzzle the passer-by,

they will be sure to puzzle the village keeper, that
uncompromising representative of the law in the ploughed
acres. He has long had his eye on you. He has so often seen
you wandering [233]about, like a lost soul, for no appreciable
reason; he has so often caught you rooting in the ground, or,
with infinite precautions, knocking down some strip of wall in a
sunken road, that in the end he has come to look upon you
with dark suspicion. You are nothing to him but a gipsy, a
tramp, poultry-thief, a shady person, or, at the best, a
madman. Should you be carrying your botanising-case, it will
 represent to him the poacher’s ferret-cage; and you would
never get it out of his head that, regardless of the game-laws
and the rights of landlords, you are clearing the neighbouring
warrens of their rabbits. Take care. However thirsty you may
be, do not lay a finger on the nearest bunch of grapes: the
man with the municipal badge will be there, delighted to have
a case at last and so to receive an explanation of your highly
perplexing behaviour.

I have never, I can safely say, committed any such

misdemeanour; and yet, one day, lying on the sand, absorbed
in the details of a Bembex’s household, I suddenly heard
beside me:

“In the name of the law, I arrest you! You come along with
me!”

It was the keeper of Les Angles, who, after vainly waiting for
an opportunity to catch me at fault and being daily more
anxious for an answer to the riddle that was worrying him, at
last resolved upon the brutal expedient of a summons. I had
to explain things. The poor man seemed anything but
convinced:

“Pooh!” he said. “Pooh! You will never [234]make me believe

that you come here and roast in the sun just to watch Flies. I
shall keep an eye on you, mark you! And, the first time I …!
However, that’ll do for the present.” 1

We must recall these adventures and tribulations of

his early days, and others of a like kind which we
have already recorded, before we can understand
the ease and the delight experienced by Fabre when
he was able to take refuge within the walls of his
hermitage. There, at least, no one would upset his
plans, or distract him from his researches and
observations. He could station himself where he
pleased; he had room to turn round. He had leisure
to await the opportunity and seize upon it when it
occurred. He had nothing to think of now but himself
and his insects, and the latter always ended by
yielding to him and complying with all his wishes.
They surrendered themselves to him as he to them.
The days were over when he had to divide himself,
as it were; when they kept him on the rack,
maliciously waiting to make overtures or intimate
disclosures to him just as he had to leave them, just
as the class-bell rang or his holiday was over. Now
there was nothing like that. He [235]was theirs from
morning to night, from night to morning. He was
always watching, always listening; his mind was
always on the alert where they were concerned. And
the veils were lifted, secrets were revealed,
confidences followed confidences, and a light was
shed upon points which had so far remained
impenetrable for a space of twenty or thirty years.

In the laboratory of the harmas the day begins early;

as soon as nature awakens with the first rays of
sunlight, directly our hermit hears the call of his
vigilant life-companions. This appeal is sometimes
very early, when, for example, he pushes
complaisance to the length of permitting the swallow
to nest in his study.

The room is closed for the night. The father lies outside; the
mother does the same when the fledglings are a certain size.
Then, from the earliest dawn, they are at the windows, greatly
troubled by the glass barricade. In order to open the window
to the afflicted parents, I have to rise hurriedly with my eyelids
still heavy with sleep.

But here is something to repay the valiant naturalist

for his early sacrifice: the delights of “prayer in the
chapel of the lilacs.”

My hermitage contains an alley of lilacs, long and wide. When

May is here, when the two [236]rows of bushes, yielding
beneath the burden of the heads of blossom, bow
themselves, forming pointed arches, this walk becomes a
chapel, in which the most beautiful festival of the year is
celebrated in the enchanting morning sunlight; a quiet festival,
without flags flapping at the windows, without the burning of
gunpowder, without quarrels after drinking; the festival of the
simple, disturbed neither by the raucous brass band of the
dancers, nor by the shouts of the crowd.… Vulgar delights of
maroons and libations, how far removed are you from this
solemnity!

I am one of the faithful in the chapel of the lilacs. My prayer is

not such as can be translated by words; it is an intimate
emotion that stirs in me gently. Devoutly I make my stations
from one pillar of verdure to the next; step by step I tell my
observer’s rosary. 2