Yes, for the children it is a real paradise, where one goes as a reward for well-learnt lessons. The grown-ups also have their share of enjoyment. As far as I am concerned, I have for many years been watching two insects here, without succeeding in discovering their family secrets. One of them is Minotaurus typhœus,[8] whose male carries on his corselet three spikes pointing in front of him. The old writers used to call him the Phalangist, because of his armour, which may be compared with the three lines of spears of the Macedonian phalanx.
He is a robust fellow, who cares nothing for the winter. All through the cold season, whenever the weather turns a trifle milder, he leaves his house discreetly, at nightfall, and gathers, in the immediate neighbourhood [[312]]of his burrow, a few Sheep-droppings, ancient, olive-shaped remains dried by the summer sun. He heaps them in a stack at the bottom of his larder, shuts the door and eats. When the provisions are all crumbed and drained of their niggardly juices, he climbs back to the surface and renews his stores. Thus does he spend the winter, never resting from his work, except when the weather is too severe.
The second object of my observations in the pine-wood is the Bolboceras. His burrows, distributed here and there, among those of the Minotaur, are easily distinguished. The Phalangist’s are surmounted by a bulky mound the materials of which are heaped into a cylinder as long as one’s finger. Each of these rolls is a load of rubbish pushed outside by the digger, thrusting with his back from below. The orifice moreover is closed whenever the Beetle is at home, either enlarging the shaft or peacefully enjoying his possessions.
The Bolboceras’ lodging is open and surrounded merely by a padding of sand. Its depth is slight, nine inches, hardly more. It goes straight down in very loose soil. It is easily inspected, therefore, if we take care first [[313]]to dig a trench in front of it, which will enable us later to cut away the perpendicular wall, slice by slice, with the blade of a knife. The burrow then appears at full length, from top to bottom, in a semicylindrical shape.
Often the violated dwelling-house is empty. The insect has left during the night, having finished its business there and gone to settle elsewhere. The Bolboceras is a nomad, a night-walker, who leaves his home without regret and easily acquires a new one. Sometimes also the insect is found at the bottom of the pit: at one time a male, at another a female, but never the two at a time. The sexes, both equally zealous in digging burrows, work separately, not together. This is not, in fact, a family residence, containing the nursery of the young; it is a temporary abode, dug by each occupant for his own comfort.
Sometimes we find nothing there but the well-sinker, surprised during his work of excavation; sometimes, lastly—and the case is not uncommon—the hermit of the crypt embraces with his legs a small hypogean fungus, either intact or partly consumed. He clutches it convulsively, refuses to be parted from it. It is his booty, his fortune, his [[314]]worldly goods. Scattered crumbs tell us that we have caught him feasting.
Let us take his prize away from him. We shall see a sort of irregular, rugged purse, closed on every side and varying in size between a pea and a cherry. Outside it is reddish, rough with little warts; inside it is smooth and white. The spores, which are ovoid and diaphanous, are contained, in rows of eight, in long satchels. By these characteristics we recognize an underground cryptogamous product, nearly related to the truffles and known to botanists as Hydnocystis arenaria, Tul.
This throws a light upon the habits of the Bolboceras and upon the reason why his burrows are so frequently renewed. In the calm of the twilight, the little gadabout takes to the fields, chirruping softly as he goes, cheering himself with song. He explores the soil, questions it as to its contents, just as the Dog does when hunting for truffles. His sense of smell warns him when the coveted morsel is underneath, covered by a few inches of sand. Certain of the exact spot where the thing lies, he digs straight down and never fails to reach it. As long as the provisions last, he [[315]]does not go out again. Blissfully he feeds at the bottom of the well, heedless of the door left open or hardly barred.
When no more food remains, he moves, looking for another loaf, which will become the excuse for a fresh burrow, to be abandoned in its turn. Each fungus consumed represents a new house, which is a mere refectory, a traveller’s refreshment-room. Thus are the autumn and spring, the seasons of the hydnocystis, spent in the pleasures of the table, from one home to the next.
To study the rabassier insect more closely, in my own house, I should need a little store of its favourite fare. It would be waste of time to seek for it myself, by digging at random: the little cryptogam is not so plentiful that I can hope to strike it with my trowel without a guide. The truffle-hunter needs his Dog; my informer shall be the Bolboceras himself. Behold me turned into a rabassier of a new kind. I reveal my secret, which can only raise a smile from my original instructor in underground botany, if he should ever hear of my singular form of competition.