A Scalary Saperda, the denizen of dead cherry-trees, clad in deep yellow with ladder-like markings of black velvet; a purply Ground-beetle, edged with amethyst along his ebony wing-cases; a brilliant Buprestis, wedding the sheen of gold and copper to the gorgeous green of malachite: these were great events, far too infrequent to satisfy us all.
With the Dung-beetles you can sing a different song! These are the ones if you want to fill the greediest of asphyxiating-phials to the neck. They, especially the smaller ones, are a numberless multitude when the others are few and far between. I remember Onthophagi and Aphodii swarming by the thousand under one shelter. You could have shovelled them up if you wished.
To this day I am still astonished when I see these crowds again; as of old, the abundance of the Dung-beetle family forms a striking contrast with the comparative scarcity of the others. If it occurred to me to go a-hunting once more and renew the quest to which I owe moments of such sheer delight, I should be certain of filling my flasks with Scarabæi, Copres, Geotrupes, Onthophagi and other members of the same corporation before achieving any measure of success with the rest of the series. By the time that May comes, the distiller of ordure is there in numbers; and in July and August, those months of blazing heat which see the suspension of labour in the fields, the dealer in unsavoury matter is still at work while the others have taken to earth and [[191]]are lying in motionless torpor. He and his contemporary, the Cicada,[2] represent almost by themselves such activity as prevails during the torrid days.
May not this greater frequency of the Dung-beetles, at least in my part of the world, be due to the longevity of the adult form? I think so. Whereas the other insects are summoned to enjoy the fine weather only in successive generations, these receive a general invitation, father and sons together, daughters and mother together. Being equally prolific, they are therefore represented twice over.
And they really deserve it, in consideration of the services which they render. There is a general hygienic law which requires that every putrid thing shall disappear in the shortest possible time. Paris has not yet solved the formidable problem of her sewage, which sooner or later will become a question of life or death for the monstrous city. One asks one’s self whether the centre of light is not doomed to be extinguished some day in the reeking exhalations of a soil saturated with putrescence. What this agglomeration of millions of men cannot obtain, with all its treasures of wealth and talent, the smallest hamlet possesses without going to any expense or even troubling to think about it.
Nature, so lavish of her cares in respect of rural health, is indifferent to the welfare of cities, if not actively hostile to it. She has created for the fields two classes of scavengers, whom nothing wearies, whom nothing repels. One of these, consisting of Flies, Silphæ, Dermestes, Necrophori, Histers is charged with the dissection of corpses. They cut and hash, they elaborate the waste [[192]]matter of death in their stomachs in order to restore it to life.
A Mole ripped open by the ploughshare soils the path with its entrails, which soon turn purple; a Snake lies on the grass, crushed by the foot of a wayfarer who thought, the fool, that he was performing a good work; an unfledged bird, fallen from its nest, lies, a crushed and pathetic heap, at the foot of the tree that carried it; thousands of other similar remains, of every sort and kind, are scattered here and there, threatening danger through their effluvia, if no steps be taken to put things right. Have no fear: no sooner is a corpse signalled in any direction than the little undertakers come trotting along. They work away at it, empty it, consume it to the bone, or at least reduce it to the dryness of a mummy. In less than twenty-four hours, Mole, Snake, bird have disappeared and the requirements of health are satisfied.
The same zeal for their task exists in the second class of scavengers. The village hardly knows those ammonia-scented refuges to which the townsman repairs to relieve his sordid needs. A little bit of a wall, a hedge, a bush is all that the peasant asks as a retreat at the moment when he would fain be alone. I need say no more to suggest the encounters to which such free and easy manners expose you! Enticed by the patches of lichen, the cushions of moss, the tufts of houseleek and other pretty things that adorn old stones, you go up to a sort of wall that supports a vineyard. Faugh! At the foot of the daintily-decked shelter, what an unconcealed abomination! You flee: lichens, mosses and houseleek tempt you no more. But come back on the morrow. The thing has disappeared, the place is clean: the Dung-beetles have been that way. [[193]]
To preserve the eyes from a frequent recurrence of offensive sights is, to these stalwart workers, the least of their tasks: a loftier mission is incumbent on them. Science tells us that the most dreadful scourges of mankind have their agents of dissemination in tiny organisms, the microbes, near neighbours of must and mould, on the extreme confines of the vegetable kingdom. At times of epidemic, the terrible germs multiply by countless myriads in the intestinal discharges. They contaminate those main necessities of life, the air and the water; they spread over our linen, our clothes, our food and thus diffuse contagion. We have to destroy by fire, to sterilize with corrosives or to bury underground such things as are infected with them.
Prudence even demands that we should never allow ordure to linger on the surface of the ground. It may be harmless or it may be dangerous: when in doubt, the best thing is to put it out of sight. That is how ancient wisdom seems to have understood the thing, long before the microbe explained to us the need for vigilance. The nations of the east, more liable than we to epidemics, had formal laws in these matters. Moses, apparently echoing Egyptian knowledge in this case, tabulated the rules of conduct for his people wandering in the Arabian desert: