THE SISYPHUS BEETLE 139 



To this example, hitherto unique, my continual 

 researches in this direction permit me to-day to add 

 three others which are fully as interesting. All three 

 are members of the corporation of dung-beetles. I 

 will relate their habits, but briefly, as in many respects 

 their history is the same as that of the Sacred 

 Scarabaeus, the Spanish Copris, and others. 



The first example is the Sisyphus beetle {Sisyphus 

 Schcefferi, Lin.), the smallest and most industrious of our 

 pill-makers, it has no equal in lively agility, grotesque 

 somersaults, and sudden tumbles down the impossible 

 paths or over the impracticable obstacles to which its 

 obstinacy is perpetually leading it. In allusion to these 

 frantic gymnastics Latreille has given the insect the 

 name of Sisyphus, after the celebrated inmate of the 

 classic Hades. This unhappy spirit underwent terrible 

 exertions in his efforts to heave to the top of a mountain 

 an enormous rock, which always escaped him at the 

 moment of attaining the summit, and rolled back to the 

 foot of the slope. Begin again, poor Sisyphus, begin 

 again, begin again always ! Your torments will never 

 cease until the rock is firmly placed upon the summit 

 of the mountain. 



I like this myth. It is, in a way, the history of many 

 of us ; not odious scoundrels worthy of eternal torments, 

 but worthy and laborious folk, useful to their neigh- 

 bours. One crime alone is theirs to expiate : the crime 

 of poverty. Half a century or more ago, for my own 

 part, I left many blood-stained tatters on the crags 

 of the inhospitable mountain ; I sweated, strained every 

 nerve, exhausted my veins, spent without reckoning 

 my reserves of energy, in order to carry upward and 



