ous milk mushroom when bruised is due to a like cause.

All these patient chemical investigations would tempt me, if the
rudimentary equipment of my laboratory and especially the irrevocable
flight of age-worn hopes permitted it. The day has passed for it now;
there is no time left to me. No matter: let us talk chemistry once more,
for a little while; and, for want of something better, let us revive old
memories. If the historian, now and again, takes a small place in the
story of his animals, the reader will kindly excuse him: old age is
prone to these reminiscences, the bloom of later days.

I have received, in all, two lessons of a scientific character in the
course of my life: one in anatomy and one in chemistry. I owe the first
to the learned naturalist Moquin-Tandon, who, on our return from
a botanizing expedition to Monte Renoso, in Corsica, showed me the
structure of a Snail in a plate filled with water. It was short and
fruitful. From that moment, I was initiated. Henceforth, I was to wield
the scalpel and decently to explore an animal's interior without any
other guidance from a master. The second lesson, that of chemistry, was
less fortunate. I will tell you what happened.

In my normal school, the scientific teaching was on an exceedingly
modest scale, consisting mainly of arithmetic and odds and ends
of geometry. Physics was hardly touched. We were taught a little
meteorology, in a summary fashion: a word or two about a red moon, a
white frost, dew, snow and wind; and, with this smattering of rustic
physics, we were considered to know enough of the subject to discuss the
weather with the farmer and the plowman.

Of natural history, absolutely nothing. No one thought of telling us
anything about flowers and trees, which give such zest to one's aimless
rambles, nor about insects, with their curious habits, nor about stones,
so instructive with their fossil records. That entrancing glance through
the windows of the world was refused us. Grammar was allowed to strangle
life.

Chemistry was never mentioned either: that goes without saying. I knew
the word, however. My casual reading, only half-understood for want of
practical demonstration, had taught me that chemistry is concerned with
the shuffle of matter, uniting or separating the various elements. But
what a strange idea I formed of this branch of study! To me it smacked
of sorcery, of alchemy and its search for the philosopher's stone. To my
mind, eve