10 Cf. idem: chaps. xv. and xvi.—Translator's Note.
11 Cf. idem: chap. xiv.—Translator's Note.
Besides, roaming the world, scattering one's attention over a host of subjects, is not observing. The travelling entomologist can stick numerous species, the joy of the collector and the nomenclator, into his boxes; but to gather circumstantial evidence is a very different matter. A Wandering Jew of science, he has no time to stop. Where a prolonged stay would be necessary to study this or that fact, he is hurried past the next stage. We must not expect the impossible of him under these conditions. Let him pin his specimens to cork tablets, let him steep them in jars of spirit, and leave to the sedentary the patient observations that require time.
This explains the extreme penury of history outside the dry descriptions of the nomenclator. Overwhelming us with its numbers, the exotic insect nearly always preserves the secret of its manners. Nevertheless, it were well to compare what happens under our eyes with that which happens elsewhere; it were excellent to see how, in the same guild of workers, the fundamental instinct varies with climatic conditions.
Then my longing to travel returns, vainer to-day than ever, unless one could find a seat on that carpet of which we read in the Arabian Nights, the famous carpet whereon one had but to sit to be carried whithersoever he pleased. O marvellous conveyance, far preferable to Xavier de Maistre's post-chaise! If I could only find just a little corner on it, with a return-ticket!
I do find it. I owe this unexpected good fortune to a Brother of the Christian Schools, to Brother Judulien, of the La Salle College at Buenos Aires. His modesty would be offended by the praises which his debtor owes him. Let us simply say that, acting on my instructions, his eyes take the place of mine. He seeks, finds, observes, sends me his notes and his discoveries. I observe, seek and find with him, by correspondence.
It is done; thanks to this first-rate collaborator, I have my seat on the magic carpet. Behold me in the pampas of the Argentine Republic, eager to draw a parallel between the industry of the Sérignan12 Dung-beetles and that of their rivals in the western hemisphere.
12 Sérignan, in Provence, where the author ended his days.—Translator's Note.
A glorious beginning! An accidental find procures me, to begin with, the Splendid Phanæus (P. splendidulus), who combines a coppery effulgence with the sparkling green of the emerald. One is quite astonished to see so rich a gem load its basket with ordure. It is the jewel on the dung-hill. The corselet of the male is grooved with a wide hollow and he sports a pair of sharp-edged pinions on his shoulders; on his forehead he plants a horn which vies with that of the Spanish Copris. While equally rich in metallic splendour, his mate has no fantastic embellishments, which are an exclusive prerogative of masculine dandyism among the Dung-beetles of La Plata as among our own.
Now what can the gorgeous foreigner do? Precisely what the Lunary Copris13 does with us. Settling, like the other, under a flat cake of Cow-dung, the South American Beetle kneads egg-shaped loaves underground. Not a thing is forgotten: the round belly with the largest volume and the smallest surface; the hard rind which acts as a preservative against premature desiccation; the terminal nipple where the egg is lodged in a hatching-chamber; and, at the end of the nipple, the felt stopper which admits the air needed by the germ.