What an adorable thing is the first blossoming of the intellect!  Best of all ages is that when the candid curiosity awakens and commences to acquire knowledge of every kind.  Little Paul has his own insectorium, in which the Scarabaeus makes his balls; his garden, the size of a handkerchief, in which he grows haricot beans, which are often dug up to see if the little roots are growing longer; his plantation, containing four oak-trees an inch in height, to which the acorns still adhere.  These serve as diversions after the arid study of grammar, which goes forward none the worse on that account.

What beautiful and useful knowledge the teaching of natural history might put into childish heads, if only science would consider the very young; if our barracks of universities would only combine the lifeless study of books with the living study of the fields; if only the red tape of the curriculum, so dear to bureaucrats, would not strangle all willing initiative.  Little Paul and I will study as much as possible in the open country, among the rosemary bushes and arbutus.  There we shall gain vigour of body and of mind; we shall find the true and the beautiful better than in school-books.

To-day the blackboard has a rest; it is a holiday.  We rise early, in view of the intended expedition; so early that we must set out fasting.  But no matter; when we are hungry we shall rest in the shade, and you will find in my knapsack the usual viaticum—­apples and a crust of bread.  The month of May is near; the Sisyphus should have appeared.  Now we must explore at the foot of the mountain, the scanty pastures through which the herds have passed; we must break with our fingers, one by one, the cakes of sheep-dung dried by the sun, but still retaining a spot of moisture in the centre.  There we shall find Sisyphus, cowering and waiting until the evening for fresher pasturage.

Possessed of this secret, which I learned from previous fortuitous discoveries, little Paul immediately becomes a master in the art of dislodging the beetle.  He shows such zeal, has such an instinct for likely hiding-places, that after a brief search I am rich beyond my ambitions.  Behold me the owner of six couples of Sisyphus beetles:  an unheard-of number, which I had never hoped to obtain.

For their maintenance a wire-gauze cover suffices, with a bed of sand and diet to their taste.  They are very small, scarcely larger than a cherry-stone.  Their shape is extremely curious.  The body is dumpy, tapering to an acorn-shaped posterior; the legs are very long, resembling those of the spider when outspread; the hinder legs are disproportionately long and curved, being thus excellently adapted to enlace and press the little pilule of dung.

Mating takes place towards the beginning of May, on the surface of the soil, among the remains of the sheep-dung on which the beetles have been feeding.  Soon the moment for establishing the family arrives.  With equal zeal the two partners take part in the kneading, transport, and baking of the food for their offspring.  With the file-like forelegs a morsel of convenient size is shaped from the piece of dung placed in the cage.  Father and mother manipulate the piece together, striking it blows with their claws, compressing it, and shaping it into a ball about the size of a big pea.