224 SOCIAL LIFE IN THE INSECT WORLD 



hold, 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 rose- 

 mary 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 I 



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 

 iyphcBus, 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 



