"

"That should be in Buffon," returned Bouvard, whose eyes were closing.

"I am not equal to any more of it. I am going to bed."

The _Epoques de la Nature_ informed them that a comet by knocking
against the sun had detached one portion of it, which became the earth.
First, the poles had cooled; all the waters had enveloped the globe;
they subsided into the caverns; then the continents separated from each
other, and the beasts and man appeared.

The majesty of creation engendered in them an amazement infinite as
itself. 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.

Vegetable and terrestrial harmonies, aerial, 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,
Herault five, Burgundy two--no more, while Dauphine 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. Their farmer had not a he-goat in his
possession; a n