This is a pretty little black beetle, with a pale, velvety abdomen; a spherical insect, as large as a biggish cherry-stone.  Its official title is Bolboceras gallicus, Muls.  By rubbing the end of the abdomen against the edge of the wing-cases it produces a gentle chirping sound like the cheeping of nestlings when the mother-bird returns to the nest with food.  The male wears a graceful horn on his head; a duplicate, in little, of that of the Copris hispanus.

Deceived by this horn, I at first took the insect for a member of the corporation of dung-beetles, and as such I reared it in captivity.  I offered it the kind of diet most appreciated by its supposed relatives, but never, never would it touch such food.  For whom did I take it?  Fie upon me!  To offer ordure to an epicure!  It required, if not precisely the truffle known to our chefs and gourmets, at least its equivalent.

This characteristic I grasped only after patient investigation.  At the southern foot of the hills of Serignan, not far from the village, is a wood of maritime pines alternating with rows of cypress.  There, towards Toussaint, after the autumnal rains, you may find an abundance of the mushrooms or “toadstools” that affect the conifers; especially the delicious Lactaris, which turns green if the points are rubbed and drips blood if broken.  In the warm days of autumn this is the favourite promenade of the members of my household, being distant enough to exercise their young legs, but near enough not to fatigue them.

There one finds and sees all manner of things:  old magpies’ nests, great bundles of twigs; jays, wrangling after filling their crops with the acorns of the neighbouring oaks; rabbits, whose little white upturned scuts go bobbing away through the rosemary bushes; dung-beetles, which are storing food for the winter and throwing up their rubbish on the threshold of their burrows.  And then the fine sand, soft to the touch, easily tunnelled, easily excavated or built into tiny huts which we thatch with moss and surmount with the end of a reed for a chimney; and the delicious meal of apples, and the sound of the aeolian harps which softly whisper among the boughs of the pines!

For the children it is a real paradise, where they can receive the reward of well-learned lessons.  The grown-ups also can share in the enjoyment.  As for myself, for long years I have watched two insects which are found there without getting to the bottom of their domestic secrets.  One is the Minotaurus typhaeus, whose male carries on his corselet three spines which point forward.  The old writers called him the Phalangist, on account of his armour, which is comparable to the three ranks of lances of the Macedonian phalanx.

This is a robust creature, heedless of the winter.  All during the cold season, whenever the weather relents a little, it issues discreetly from its lodging, at nightfall, and gathers, in the immediate neighbourhood of its dwelling, a few fragments of sheep-dung and ancient olives which the summer suns have dried.  It stacks them in a row at the end of its burrow, closes the door, and consumes them.  When the food is broken up and exhausted of its meagre juices it returns to the surface and renews its store.  Thus the winter passes, famine being unknown unless the weather is exceptionally hard.