THE GEOTRUPES 115 



as a retreat at the moment when he would fain be alone. 

 I need say no more to suggest the encounters to which 

 such free and easy manners expose you ! Enticed by the 

 patches of lichen, the cushions of moss, the tufts of home- 

 wort and other pretty things that adorn old stones, you 

 go up to a sort of wall that supports the ground of a vine- 

 yard. Ugh ! At the foot of the daintily-decked shelter, 

 what a spreading abomination ! You flee : lichens, 

 mosses and homewort tempt you no more. But come 

 back on the morrow. The thing has disappeared, the 

 place is clean : the Dung-beetles have been that way. 



To preserve the eyes from offensive sights too oft 

 repeated is, to those gallant fellows, the least of offices : 

 a loftier mission is incumbent on them. Science tells us 

 that the most dreadful scourges of mankind have their 

 agents in tiny organisms, the microbes, near neighbours 

 of must and mould, on the extreme confines of the 

 vegetable kingdom. The terrible germs multiply by 

 countless myriads in the intestinal discharges at times 

 of epidemic. They contaminate the air and water, those 

 primary necessities of life ; they spread over our linen, 

 our clothes, our food and thus diffuse contagion. We 

 have to destroy by fire, to sterilize with corrosives or to 

 bury underground such things as are soiled with them. 



Prudence even demands that we should never allow 

 ordure to linger on the surface of the ground. It may be 

 harmless, it may be dangerous : when in doubt, the best 

 thing is to put it out of sight. That is how ancient 

 wisdom seems to have understood the thing, long before 

 the microbe explained to us the great need for vigilance. 

 The nations of the East, more exposed to epidemics than 

 ourselves, had formal laws in these matters. Moses, 

 apparently echoing Egyptian knowledge in this connec- 



