To make sure of these windows and save the insect from them, I sheath the tube in a few cardboard sheaths which can be gently slipped up and down and which fit inside one another. With this arrangement, I shall be able, when required, and without distracting the insect from its work, to create alternately, by a simple movement of the thumb, a little light for myself and darkness for the Beetle. The distribution of the movable sheaths, which slip up or down as needed, will allow the tube to be examined from end to end as and when the accidents of boring open up new windows.
A last precaution is necessary. If I merely put the couple simply in the dish surmounted by the bell-glass, it is probable that the prisoners will not realize what a small portion of the soil is available for digging. [[103]]It will be best for me to teach them the right spot in the centre of an impregnable area. For this purpose, I leave the top of the tube empty to a depth of a few fingers’-breadths; and, as a glass wall would be impossible to climb, I provide this part with a lift, that is to say, I line it with wire-gauze. When this is done, the two insects, male and female, unearthed together from their natural burrow, are inserted into this entrance-hall, where they will find their familiar environment, the sandy soil. With a little food scattered about the pit, it will be enough, I hope, to make them like their peculiar lodging.
What results shall I obtain with my rustic apparatus, so long planned by the fireside during the winter evenings? Certainly it is not much to look at; it would gain a poor reception in the laboratories that are constantly perfecting their equipment. It is peasant’s work, a clumsy combination of common objects. I agree; but let us remember that, in the pursuit of truth, the poor and simple are by no means inferior to the most magnificent. My arrangement of three bamboo canes has given me delightful [[104]]moments; it has provided me with some fascinating glimpses which I will try to set forth.
In March, at the time of the great nest-building excavations, I dig up a couple in the fields. I install them in my apparatus. In case provisions should be needed as a restorative during the laborious sinking of the shaft, I place a few Sheep-droppings under the glass bell, near the mouth of the tube. The trick of the empty entrance-hall, calculated to bring the prisoners into immediate touch with the workable column of earth, succeeds to perfection. Soon after their installation, the captives have recovered from their excitement and are diligently at work.
They were taken from their home in the full ardour of excavation and they continue in my garden the task which I interrupted. It is true that I changed the site of their workshop as quickly as I could return from their place of origin, which was not far away. Their zeal has not had time to grow cold. They were digging just before removal and they continue to dig. Time is pressing; the pair will not willingly down tools, even after an upheaval which one would think must have demoralized them. [[105]]
As I anticipated, the digging assumes an eccentric direction, producing in the sandy wall a few gaps in which the glass is laid bare. These peep-holes are none too satisfactory as regards my plans; while some of them permit of clear observation, the greater number are obscured by an earthy veil. Besides, they are not permanent. New ones open daily, while others close. These continual variations are due to the rubbish which, laboriously hoisted outside, rubs against the wall, plastering or denuding this point or that. I take advantage of these fortuitous openings to examine as best I may, when the light falls at a favourable angle, the interesting things happening inside the tube.
I see over and over again, at my leisure, as often as I please and over a protracted period, what the exhausting inspection of the natural burrows showed me in rare and fleeting glimpses. The mother is always ahead, in the post of honour, at the working-face. Alone she toils and moils, with her clypeus; alone she scrapes and digs, with the harrow of her toothed arms: her mate never relieves her. The father is always in the rear, very busy too, but on another job. His [[106]]task it is to carry the loosened soil outside and to clear up as the pioneer goes deeper and deeper.
This labour of his is no slight affair, as we may judge from the mound which he throws up when plying his trade in the meadows. It is a big heap of earthen plugs, of cylinders mostly measuring an inch in length. You need only examine the pieces to see that the navvy handles blocks of Cyclopean dimensions. He does not carry off the excavated soil fragment by fragment; he ejects it in huge agglomerations.
What should we think of a miner who was obliged to hoist to the surface, to a height of some hundreds of feet, an overpoweringly heavy hod of coal up a narrow, perpendicular shaft which could be climbed only by the use of his knees and elbows? The Minotaur father’s ordinary task is the equivalent of this feat of strength. He performs it with great dexterity. How does he manage to do it? Our bamboo tripod will tell us.
From time to time, the denuded points of the tube afford me a glimpse of his doings. He is stationed at the digger’s heels, raking the loosened soil towards him by the armful. [[107]]He kneads it, as its moisture enables him to do, he works it up into a plug which he thrusts back into the shaft. Then the plug begins to move. The load precedes him; and he pushes it from behind with his three-pronged fork. The work of transport would be a magnificent sight did the accidental peep-holes in the gallery lend themselves better to our curiosity. Unfortunately, they are few and small and none too clear.