We recognize one another by our speech, by the sound, the inflection of our voices. They, on the other hand, are dumb, deprived of all means of vocal appeal. There remains the sense of smell. Minotaurus finding his mate makes me think of my friend Tom, the house-dog, who, at his moony periods, lifts his nose in the air, sniffs the breeze and jumps over the garden-walls, eager to obey the distant and magical convocation; he puts me in mind of the Great Peacock Moth, who swiftly covers several miles to pay his homage to the new-hatched maid.
The comparison, however, is far from perfect. The dog and the big Moth get wind of the wedding before they know the bride. Minotaurus, on the other hand, has no experience of long pilgrimages, yet makes his way, in a brief circuit, to her whom he has already visited; he knows her, he distinguishes her from the others by certain emanations, certain individual scents inappreciable to any save the enamoured swain. Of what do these effluvia consist? The insect did not tell me; and that is a pity, for it would have taught us things worth knowing about its feats of smell. [[132]]
Now how is the work divided in this household? To discover this is not one of those easy undertakings for which the point of a knife suffices. He who proposes to visit the burrowing insect at home must have recourse to arduous sapping. We have here to do not with the apartment of the Sacred Beetle, the Copris or the others, which is soon laid bare with a mere pocket-trowel: we have to do with a pit the bottom of which can be reached only with a stout spade, sturdily wielded for hours at a stretch. And, if the sun be at all hot, one returns from the drudgery utterly exhausted.
Oh, my poor joints, grown rusty with age! To suspect the existence of a fine problem underground and not to be able to dig! The zeal survives, as ardent as in the days when I used to pull down the spongy slopes beloved by the Anthophora; the love of research has not abated, but the strength is lacking. Luckily, I have an assistant, in the shape of my son Paul, who lends me the vigour of his wrists and the suppleness of his loins. I am the head, he is the arm.
The rest of the family, including the mother—and she not the least eager—usually go with us. One cannot have too many eyes when the pit becomes deep and one has to observe from a distance the minute documents exhumed by the spade. What the one misses the other perceives. Huber,[1] when he went blind, studied the bee through the intermediary of a clear-sighted and devoted adjutrix. I am even better-off than the great Swiss naturalist. My sight, which is still fairly good, although exceedingly tired, is aided by the deep-seeing eyes of all [[133]]my family. I owe to them the fact that I am able to pursue my researches: let me thank them here.
PLATE VI
Minotaurus Typhœus, male and female.
Excavating Minotaurus’ burrow.
We are on the spot early in the morning. We soon find a burrow with a large mole-hill formed of cylindrical stoppers forced out in one lump by blows of the rammer. We clear away the mound and a pit of great depth opens below it. A useful reed, gathered on the way, serves me as a guide, diving lower and lower down. At last, at about five feet, the reed touches bottom. We are there, we have reached Minotaurus’ chamber.