CHAPTER XVI
THE TRUFFLE-HUNTING BEETLE
Before we come to the Beetle, I must first tell you about my friend, the Dog, who hunts truffles, which are underground mushrooms. Dogs are quite often used for this purpose, and I have had the good fortune on several occasions to go with a Dog who was a great expert in this line. He was certainly nothing to look at, this artist whom I was so anxious to see at work: just a Dog, placid and deliberate in his ways, ugly, unkempt; the sort of Dog you would never have at your own fireside. Talent and poverty often go hand in hand.
His master, a celebrated truffle-gatherer in the village, was at first afraid that I wanted to steal his secrets and set up a rival business, but when he found that I only made drawings of mushrooms and set down lists of underground vegetable things, he let me join his expeditions.
It was agreed between us that the Dog should act as he pleased and receive a bit of bread as his reward after each discovery, no matter whether the underground mushroom he discovered was a real truffle, the kind people like to eat, or an uneatable one. In no case was the master to drive the dog away from a spot where experience told him there was nothing salable to be found. As far as my studies went, I did not care whether the mushrooms were edible or not.
Conducted in this way, the expedition was very successful. The busy Dog trotted along with his nose to the wind, at a moderate pace. Every little while he stopped, questioned the ground with his nostrils, scratched for a few seconds, without too much excitement, then looked up at his master as if to say:
“Here we are, here we are! On my word of honor as a Dog, there’s a truffle here.”
And he spoke the truth. The master dug at the spot indicated. If the trowel went astray, the Dog showed the man how to put it right by sniffing at the bottom of the hole. The mushroom was always there. A Dog’s nose cannot lie. But he made us gather all sorts of underground mushrooms: the large and the small, the fresh and the decayed, the scented and the unscented, the fragrant and those which were the reverse. I was surprised at my collection, which included most of the underground fungi of the neighborhood.
Is it smell as we understand it that guides the Dog in his search? I do not believe that it is, otherwise he would not point out so many varieties which smell so very different. He must perceive something that we cannot. It is a mistake to compare everything by human standards. There are more sensations in the world than we know of. Such secrets are known to insects better than to other animals, like the Dog or the Pig, who also hunts truffles with its nose. We will hear now about the Truffle-hunting Beetle.
This is a pretty little black Beetle, with a pale and velvety belly, round as a cherry-stone and much the same size. By rubbing the tip of its abdomen against the edge of its wing-cases it makes a soft chirrup like that which little birds make when their mother comes with their food. The male wears a graceful horn on his head.