Further Observations 



greatly wished for by the husbandman and 

 the Dung-beetle alike. Recent mounds be- 

 come numerous in the fields. This is the 

 season of autumnal rejoicings, when the soil, 

 which has been like a cinder all the summer, 

 recovers its moisture and is covered with 

 green grass to which the shepherd leads his 

 flock; it is the festival of the Minotaur, the 

 exodus of the youngsters who, for the first 

 time, enter into the joys of the daylight, 

 among the sugar-plums dropped by the Sheep 

 in the pastures. 



However, nothing appears under the 

 cover of my apparatus. It Is no use waiting 

 any longer, the season Is too far advanced. 

 I take the pylon to pieces. The mother is 

 dead; she Is even in tatters, a sign of an end 

 already remote. I find her at the top of the 

 vertical shaft, not far from the orifice. 



This position seems to show that, when 

 her work was done, the mother climbed up 

 to die out of doors as the father had done 

 before her. A sudden and final break-down 

 overcame her on the way, almost at her door. 

 I expected something better; I pictured her 

 coming out accompanied by her offspring: 

 the plucky creature deserved to see her fam- 

 ily revelling in the last fine days of the year. 

 149 



