Nor is the baker inactive in her kitchen. She collects the remnants pouring down around her, subdivides them yet further, refines them and sorts them. This, the tenderer part, for the central crumb; that, tougher, for the crust of the loaf. Turning this way and that, she pats the material with the battledore of her flat arms; she arranges it in layers, which presently she compresses by stamping on them where they lie, much after the manner of a vintager treading his grapes. Rendered firm and compact, the mass will keep better. After some ten days [[122]]of this united labour, the couple at last obtain the long, cylindrical loaf. The father has done the grinding, the mother the kneading.
On the 24th of April, everything being now in order, the male leaves the tube of my apparatus. He roams about in the bell-glass, heedless of my presence, he who was at first so timid and apt to dive down the shaft at the first sight of me. He is indifferent to food. A few pellets remain on the surface. He comes upon them at every moment; he disdainfully passes them by. He has but one wish, to get away as fast as he can. This is shown by his restless marching and countermarching, by his continual attempts to scale the glass wall. He tumbles over, recovers his footing and begins all over again indefinitely, giving not a thought to the burrow, which he will never re-enter.
I let the desperate Beetle exhaust himself for twenty-four hours in vain attempts at escape. Let us come to his assistance now and restore his freedom. Or rather no, for this would mean that we should lose sight of him and remain ignorant of the object of his perturbation. I have a very large unoccupied rearing-cage. I house the [[123]]Minotaur in this cage, where he will have plenty of flying-room, choice victuals and sunlight. Next morning, in spite of all these luxuries, I find him lying on his back, with his legs stiff and stark. He is dead. The gallant fellow, having fulfilled his duties as the father of a family, felt his strength failing him; and this was the cause of his restlessness. He was anxious to go and die by himself, far away, so as not to defile the home with a corpse and trouble the widow in her subsequent operations. I admire this stoical resignation on the insect’s part.
If it were an isolated, casual instance, resulting perhaps from a defective installation, there would be no reason to dwell upon the Beetle who met with his death in my apparatus. But here is something that complicates matters. In the open fields, when May is at hand, I often happen upon Minotaurs shrivelling in the sun; and these corpses are those of males, always males, with very few exceptions.
Another and a very significant detail is supplied by a cage in which I several times tried to rear the insect. As the bed of soil, some eighteen inches thick, was not deep enough, the prisoners absolutely refused to [[124]]build their nests in it. Apart from this, the other, usual operations were pursued according to rule. Well, from the end of April onwards, the males ascend to the surface, one at a time. For a couple of days they wander about the trellis-work, anxious to get away. At last they tumble off, lie on their backs and slowly give up the ghost. Age has killed them.
In the first week of June, I dig up the soil in the cage from top to bottom. Of the fifteen males who were there at the beginning, hardly one remains. All have died; all the females survive. The harsh law is therefore inevitable. After helping with his hod in the lengthy task of sinking the shaft, after amassing suitable provisions and grinding the meal, the industrious trident-bearer goes away to die far from home. [[125]]
[1] Cf. The Life of the Spider: chap. v. The essays on the Scorpion will appear in the next, the concluding volume of the series.—Translator’s Note. [↑]