Here are the facts: about the middle of December, I install in each of my two appliances a female, selected from among those which best lend themselves to my designs. At this time of the year, the sexes remain [[135]]apart. The males live in burrows of middling depth; the females go down rather lower. Some of these strenuous workers have already, without the aid of a helper, completed or very nearly completed the well required for the laying. On the 10th of December, I unearth one of them at a depth of almost four feet. These early diggers are not what I want. Wishing to observe the work when in full swing, I choose subjects buried not too low down in the fields.
In the centre of the column of earth in each apparatus, I make a shallow hole, which marks the beginning of the burrow. I drop the prisoner down it; and this is enough to accustom her to the place. A recorded number of Sheep-droppings are distributed around the opening. Henceforth things proceed of themselves: I have merely to renew the provisions when the need arises.
The cold season is spent in the balmy atmosphere of a green-house; and nothing remarkable happens. A small mound is formed, hardly big enough to fill the hollow of my hand. The hour has not yet come for serious operations.
In the middle of February, when the almond trees begin to blossom, the weather is [[136]]very mild. It is no longer winter, and it is not yet spring; the sun is pleasant in the daytime and at night there is a certain charm in the blaze of a few logs upon the hearth. On the rosemary bushes in the garden, already displaying their wealth of liliaceous flowers, the Bees are gathering booty, the red-bellied Osmiæ are humming, while the big grey Locusts stand twirling their great wings and proclaiming their joy of life. This delicious season of awakening spring should be to the Minotaurs’ liking.
I marry my captives: I give each of them a mate, a magnificent horned male, brought home from the fields. The household is set up during the night; and without delay the couple get to work in earnest. The co-operation has given fresh life to the workshop. Before this, the males, leading solitary lives in short burrows, used commonly to doze, not caring to gather pellets or to sink shafts of any depth; the females for the most part displayed no greater industry; the burrows remained superficial, the mounds comparatively flat, the harvest unproductive. As soon as the household is established, they dig deeply, and hoard plentifully. In twice twenty-four hours, the expulsion of rubbish [[137]]has hidden the home beneath a dome-shaped heap of earthly plugs nine inches in width; moreover, a dozen droppings have been sent down into the cellar.
This activity is maintained for three months or longer, broken by intervals of repose of varying duration, which are apparently rendered necessary by the operations of the miller and baker. The female never appears outside the burrow; it is always the male who emerges and sets out upon his quest, sometimes when twilight falls, more often at a later hour of the night.
The crop varies greatly, though I take care to keep the part around the burrow properly supplied. At one time, two or three pellets are enough; at another, as many as twenty are collected in a single night. The gleaner seems to be influenced by the atmospheric conditions. The harvest is usually most active when the sky looks threatening, as though preparing for a storm that fails to materialize, or when I myself create rain by watering the tray of my apparatus. In dry weather, on the contrary, whole weeks pass without the slightest attempts at storing.
As June draws nigh, feeling his end at [[138]]hand, the gallant fellow redoubles his ardour; he wishes before he dies to leave his family abundantly provided for. With a not always well-timed enthusiasm, the prodigal heaps pellet upon pellet, to the pitch of encumbering the burrow and making the mother’s business difficult to carry on. Excessive wealth is an incubus. The thoughtless Beetle recognizes the fact at last and ejects the superfluous food from the shaft.
On the first day of June, in one of my appliances, the sum of pellets sent down amounts to 239, a number that speaks well for the trident-bearer’s industry. My record of the droppings, kept as strictly as a banker’s account, confirms the enormous result. I am overjoyed by the treasure of the Minotaurs’; but, a few days later, an unexpected issue alarms me. One morning I find the mother dead. She has come up to breathe her last on the surface. It appears to be the rule that neither of the pair shall die in the children’s home. It is at a distance, in the open air, that the father and mother meet their end.
This reversal of the normal order of decease, the mother dying before the father, calls for enquiry. I inspect the inside of the [[139]]apparatus by unscrewing the three movable shutters. My precautions against dryness have been fully successful. The uppermost third of the column of sand has retained a certain moisture which gives firmness and prevents any landslips. The middle third, with its sheath of wet rags, is even more moist. Here the victuals are heaped up in a well-stored granary; the male is there, brisk and energetic. In the lowest third, which stands in the wet earth of a large flower-pot, the plasticity is as great as that which my spade encounters in the deep natural burrow. Everything seems to be in order; and yet there is not a trace of nest-building at the bottom of the shaft; there are no sausages prepared or even preparing. All the pellets are untouched.