Their heads got enlarged. They were proud of reflecting on such lofty themes.

The minerals ere long proved wearisome to them, and for distraction they sought refuge in the Harmonies of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre.98

Vegetable and terrestrial harmonies, aërial, aquatic, human, fraternal, and even conjugal—every one of them is here dealt with, not omitting the invocations to Venus, to the Zephyrs, and to the Loves. They exhibited astonishment at fishes having fins, birds wings, seeds an envelope; full of that philosophy which discovers virtuous intentions in Nature, and regards her as a kind of St. Vincent de Paul, always occupied in performing acts of benevolence.

Then they wondered at her prodigies, the water-spouts, the volcanoes, the virgin forests; and they bought M. Depping's work on the Marvels and Beauties of Nature in France. Cantal possesses three of them, Hérault five, Burgundy two—no more, while Dauphiné reckons for itself alone up to fifteen marvels. But soon we shall find no more of them. The grottoes with stalactites are stopped up; the burning mountains are extinguished; the natural ice-houses have become heated; and the old trees in which they said mass are falling under the leveller's axe, or are on the point of dying.

Their curiosity next turned towards the beasts.

They re-opened their Buffon, and got into ecstasies over the strange tastes of certain animals.

But all the books are not worth one personal observation. They hurried out into the farmyard, and asked the labourers whether they had seen bulls consorting with mares, hogs seeking after cows, and the males of partridges doing strange things among themselves.

"Never in their lives." They thought such questions even a little queer for gentlemen of their age.

They took a fancy to try abnormal unions. The least difficult is that of the he-goat and the ewe.99 Their farmer had not a he-goat in his possession; a neighbour lent his, and, as it was the period of rutting, they shut the two beasts up in the press, concealing themselves behind the casks in order that the event might be quietly accomplished.

Each first ate a little heap of hay; then they ruminated; the ewe lay down, and she bleated continuously, while the he-goat, standing erect on his crooked legs, with his big beard and his drooping ears, fixed on her his eyes, which glittered in the shade.

At length, on the evening of the third day, they deemed it advisable to assist nature, but the goat, turning round on Pécuchet, hit him in the lower part of the stomach with his horns. The ewe, seized with fear, began turning about in the press as if in a riding-school. Bouvard ran after her, threw himself on top of her to hold her, and fell on the ground with both hands full of wool.

They renewed their experiments on hens and a drake, on a mastiff and a sow, in the hope that monsters might be the result, not understanding anything about the question of species.

This word denotes a group of individuals whose descendants reproduce themselves, but animals classed as of different species may possess the power of reproduction, while others comprised in the same species have lost the capacity. They flattered themselves that they would obtain clear ideas on this subject by studying the development of germs; and Pécuchet wrote to Dumouchel in order to get a microscope.

By turns they put on the glass surface hairs, tobacco, finger-nails, and a fly's claw, but they forgot the drop of water which is indispensable; at100 other times it was the little lamel, and they pushed each other forward, and put the instrument out of order; then, when they saw only a haze, they blamed the optician. They went so far as to have doubts about the microscope. Perhaps the discoveries that have been attributed to it are not so certain?

Dumouchel, in sending on the invoice to them, begged of them to collect on his account some serpent-stones and sea-urchins, of which he had always been an admirer, and which were commonly found in country districts. In order to interest them in geology he sent them the Lettres of Bertrand with the Discours of Cuvier on the revolutions of the globe.

After the perusal of these two works they imagined the following state of things:

First, an immense sheet of water, from which emerged promontories speckled with lichens, and not one human being, not one sound. It was a world silent, motionless, and bare; there long plants swayed to and fro in a fog that resembled the vapour of a sweating-room. A red sun overheated the humid atmosphere. Then volcanoes burst forth; the igneous rocks sent up mountains of liquid flame, and the paste of the streaming porphyry and basalt began to congeal. Third picture: in shallow seas have sprung up isles of madrepore; a cluster of palm trees overhangs them here and there. There are shells like carriage wheels, tortoises three metres in length, lizards of sixty feet; amphibians stretch out amid the reeds their ostrich necks and crocodile jaws; winged serpents fly about. Finally, on the large continents, huge mammifers make their appearance, their limbs misshapen, like pieces of wood badly squared, their101 hides thicker than plates of bronze, or else shaggy, thick-lipped, with manes and crooked fangs. Flocks of mammoths browsed on the plains where, since, the Atlantic has been; the paleotherium, half horse, half tapir, overturned with his tumbling the ant-hills of Montmartre; and the cervus giganteus trembled under the chestnut trees at the growls of the bears of the caverns, who made the dog of Beaugency, three times as big as a wolf, yelp in his den.

All these periods had been separated from one another by cataclysms, of which the latest is our Deluge. It was like a drama of fairyland in several acts, with man for apotheosis.

They were astounded when they learned that there existed on stones imprints of dragon-flies and birds' claws; and, having run through one of the Roret manuals, they looked out for fossils.

One afternoon, as they were turning over some flints in the middle of the high-road, the curé passed, and, accosting them in a wheedling tone:

"These gentlemen are busying themselves with geology. Very good."

For he held this science in esteem. It confirmed the authority of the Scriptures by proving the fact of the Deluge.

Bouvard talked about coprolites, which are animals' excrements in a petrified state.

The Abbé Jeufroy appeared surprised at the matter. After all, if it were so, it was a reason the more for wondering at Providence.

Pécuchet confessed that, up to the present, their inquiries had not been fruitful; and yet the environs of Falaise, like all Jurassic soils, should abound in remains of animals.102

"I have been told," replied the Abbé Jeufroy, "that the jawbone of an elephant was at one time found at Villers."

However, one of his friends, M. Larsoneur, advocate, member of the bar at Lisieux, and archæologist, would probably supply them with information about it. He had written a history of Port-en-Bessin, in which the discovery of an alligator was noticed.

Bouvard and Pécuchet exchanged glances: the same hope took possession of both; and, in spite of the heat, they remained standing a long time questioning the ecclesiastic, who sheltered himself from the sun under a blue cotton umbrella. The lower part of his face was rather heavy, and his nose was pointed. He was perpetually smiling, or bent his head while he closed his eyelids.

The church-bell rang the Angelus.

"A very good evening, gentlemen! You will allow me, will you not?"

At his suggestion they waited three weeks for Larsoneur's reply. At length it arrived.

The name of the man who had dug up the tooth of the mastodon was Louis Bloche. Details were wanting. As to his history, it was comprised in one of the volumes of the Lisieux Academy, and he could not lend his own copy, as he was afraid of spoiling the collection.