132 THE LIFE AND LOVE OF THE INSECT 



Now how is the work divided in this household ? To 

 discover this is not one of those easy undertakings for 

 which the point of a knife suffices. He who proposes to 

 visit the burrowing insect at home must have recourse 

 to arduous sapping. We have here to do not with 

 the apartment of the Sacred Beetle, the Copris or the 

 others, which is soon laid bare with a mere pocket- 

 trowel : w^e have to do with a pit the bottom of 

 which can be reached onlj^ with a stout spade, sturdily 

 wielded for hours at a stretch. And, if the sun be 

 at all hot, one returns from the drudgery utterly ex- 

 hausted. 



Oh, my poor joints, grown rusty with age ! To suspect 

 the existence of a fine problem underground and not to 

 be able to dig ! The zeal survives, as ardent as in the 

 days when I used to pull down the spongy slopes beloved 

 by the Anthophora ; the love of research has not abated, 

 but the strength is lacking. Luckily, I have an assistant, 

 in the shape of my son Paul, who lends me the vigour of 

 his wrists and the suppleness of his loins. I am the 

 head, he is the arm. 



The rest of the famDy, including the mother — and she 



not the least eager — usually go with us. One cannot 



have too many eyes when the pit becomes deep and one 



has to observe from a distance the minute documents 



exhumed by the spade. What the one misses the other 



perceives. Huber,^ when he went blind, studied the bee 



through the intermediary of a clear-sighted and devoted 



adjutrix. I am even better-ofE than the great Swiss 



naturalist. My sight, which is stiU fairly good, although 



exceedingly tired, is aided by the deep-seeing eyes of all 



1 Francois Huber (1750-1831), the Swiss naturalist. He early 

 became blind from excessive study and conducted his scientific work 

 thereafter with the aid of his wife. — Translator's Note. 



