But these are trivialities!  Not so, if you please, but high and important matters, speaking to us of the infinite pains which preside over the preservation of the least of things; witnesses of a superior logic which regulates the smallest details.

The Balaninus, so happily inspired as a mother, has her place in the world and is worthy of notice.  So, at least, thinks the blackbird, which gladly makes a meal of the insect with the long beak when fruits grow rare at the end of autumn.  It makes a small mouthful, but a tasty, and is a pleasant change after such olives as yet withstand the cold.

And what without the blackbird and its rivalry of song were the reawakening of the woods in spring?  Were man to disappear, annihilated by his own foolish errors, the festival of the life-bringing season would be no less worthily observed, celebrated by the fluting of the yellow-billed songster.

To the meritorious role of regaling the blackbird, the minstrel of the forest, the Balaninus adds another—­that of moderating the superfluity of vegetation.  Like all the mighty who are worthy of their strength, the oak is generous; it produces acorns by the bushel.  What could the earth do with such prodigality?  The forest would stifle itself for want of room; excess would ruin the necessary.

But no sooner is this abundance of food produced than there is an influx from every side of consumers only too eager to abate this inordinate production.  The field-mouse, a native of the woods, stores acorns in a gravel-heap near its hay-lined nest.  A stranger, the jay, comes in flocks from far away, warned I know not how.  For some weeks it flies feasting from oak to oak, giving vent to its joys and its emotions in a voice like that of a strangling cat; then, its mission accomplished, it returns to the North whence it came.

The Balaninus has anticipated them all.  The mother confided her eggs to the acorns while yet they were green.  These have now fallen to earth, brown before their time, and pierced by a round hole through which the larva has escaped after devouring the contents.  Under one single oak a basket might easily be filled with these ruined shells.  More than the jay, more than the field-mouse, the elephant-beetle has contributed to reduce the superfluity of acorns.

Presently man arrives, busied in the interest of his pig.  In my village it is quite an important event when the municipal hoardings announce the day for opening the municipal woods for the gathering of acorns.  The more zealous visit the woods the day before and select the best places.  Next day, at daybreak, the whole family is there.  The father beats the upper branches with a pole; the mother, wearing a heavy hempen apron which enables her to force her way through the stubborn undergrowth, gathers those within reach of the hand, while the children collect those scattered upon the ground.  First the small baskets are filled, then the big corbeilles, and then the sacks.