It baffles them so thoroughly that we are extremely surprised when we find in the muck-raker the noble prerogative denied to the honey-gatherer. Various Dung-beetles are accustomed to help in the burden of housekeeping and know the value of working in double harness. Remember the Geotrupes couple, preparing their larva’s portion together; think of the father lending his mate the assistance of his powerful press in the manufacture of the tight-packed sausages, a splendid example of domestic habits and one extremely surprising amid the general egoism.
To this example, hitherto unique, my constant studies of the subject enable me to-day to add three others, which are equally interesting; and all three are likewise furnished by the Dung-beetle guild. I will describe them, but briefly, for in many particulars their story is the same as that of the Sacred Beetle, the Spanish Copris and the others.
The first case is that of the Sisyphus (S. Schæfferi, Lin.), the smallest and most zealous of our pill-rollers. [[238]]He is the liveliest and most agile of them all, recking nothing of awkward somersaults and headlong falls on the impossible tracks to which his obstinacy brings him back again and again. It was in memory of these wild gymnastics that Latreille gave him the name of Sisyphus, famous in the annals of Tartarus. The unhappy wretch had the terrible task of having to roll a huge stone up hill; and each time he had toiled to the top of the mountain the stone would slip from his grasp and roll to the bottom. Try again, poor Sisyphus, try again and go on trying: your punishment will not be over until the rock is firmly fixed up there.
I like this myth. It is in a fashion the history of a good many of us, not detestable scoundrels worthy of eternal torments, but decent, hard-working folk, doing their duty by their neighbours. They have one crime only to expiate: that of poverty. So far as I am concerned, for half a century and more I have painfully climbed that steep ascent, leaving garments stained with blood and sweat on its sharp crags; I have strained every nerve, drained myself dry, spent my strength recklessly in the struggle to hoist up to safety that crushing burden, my daily bread; and hardly is the loaf balanced when it slips off, slides down and is lost in the abyss. Try again, poor Sisyphus, try again until the load, falling for the last time, smashes your head and sets you free at last.
The Sisyphus of the naturalists knows none of these bitter trials. Untroubled by the steep slopes, he gaily trundles his load, at one time bread for himself, at another for his children. He is very scarce in these parts; and I should never have managed to procure a suitable number of subjects for my purpose, but for an assistant whom I [[239]]ought to present to the reader, for he will play his part more than once in these narratives.
I speak of my son Paul, a little chap of seven. My assiduous companion on my hunting-expeditions, he knows better than any one of his age the secrets of the Cicada, the Locust, the Cricket and especially the Dung-beetle, his great delight. Twenty paces away, his sharp eyes will distinguish the real mound that marks a burrow from casual heaps of earth; his delicate ears catch the Grasshopper’s faint stridulation, which to me remains silence. He lends me his sight and hearing; and I, in exchange, present him with ideas, which he receives attentively, raising wide, blue, questioning eyes to mine.
Oh, what an adorable thing is the first blossoming of the intellect; what a beautiful age is that when innocent curiosity awakens, enquiring into all things! So little Paul has his own vivarium, in which the Sacred Beetle makes pears for him; his own little garden, no larger than a pocket-handkerchief, where he grows beans, often digging them up to see if the tiny roots are growing longer; his forest plantation, in which stand four oaks a hand’s-breadth high, still furnished on one side with the twin-breasted acorn that feeds them. It all makes a welcome change from dry grammar, which gets on none the worse for it.
What beautiful and delightful things natural history could put into children’s heads if science would but stoop to charm the young; if our barracks of colleges would but add the living study of the fields to the lifeless study of books; if the red tape of the curriculum beloved by bureaucrats did not strangle any eager initiative! Little Paul, my boy, let us study as much as we can in [[240]]the open country, among the rosemary- and arbutus-shrubs. By so doing, we shall gain in vigour of body and mind; we shall find more of the true and the beautiful than in any old musty books.
To-day we are giving the blackboard a rest; it is a holiday. We get up early, in view of the contemplated expedition, so early indeed that you will have to start without your breakfast. Have no fear: when your appetite comes, we will call a halt in the shade and you shall find in my bag the usual viaticum, an apple and a piece of bread. The month of May is near at hand; the Sisyphus must have appeared. What we have to do now is to explore, at the foot of the mountain, the lean meadows where the flocks have been; we shall have to break with our fingers, one by one, the cakes dropped by the Sheep and baked by the sun, but still retaining a kernel of crumb under their crust. There we shall find the Sisyphus huddled, waiting for the fresher windfall with which the evening grazers will supply him.
Instructed in this secret, which I learnt long ago from chance discoveries, little Paul forthwith becomes a master in the art of shelling Sheep-droppings. He displays such zeal and such an instinct for the best morsels that, after a very few halts, I am rich beyond my fondest hopes. Behold me the proud owner of six couples of Sisyphi, an unprecedented treasure, which I was far from expecting.