128 THE LIFE AND LOVE OF THE INSECT 



names both become very happy. Such is the case with 

 Minotaurus Typhceus (Lin.). 



It is the name given to a fair-sized black coleopteron, 

 closely related to the Earth-borers, the Geotrupes. He is 

 a peaceable, inoffensive creature, but even better-horned 

 than Minos' bull. None among our harness-loving insects 

 wears so threatening an armour. The male carries on 

 his corselet a sheaf consisting of three steeled spears, 

 parallel to one another and jutting forward. Imagine 

 him the size of a bull ; and Theseus himself, if he met him 

 in the fields, would hardly dare to face his terrible trident. 



The Typhceus of the legend had the ambition to sack 

 the home of the gods by stacking one upon the other a 

 pile of mountains torn from their base ; the Typhceus of 

 the naturalists does not climb : he descends ; he bores 

 the ground to enormous depths. The first, with a move- 

 ment of the shoulder, sets a province heaving ; the 

 second, with a thrust of its chine, makes his mole-hill 

 tremble as Etna trembles when he stirs who lies buried 

 within her depths. 



Such is the insect wherewith we are concerned. 



But what is the use of this history, what the use of all 

 this minute research ? I well know that it will not pro- 

 duce a fall in the price of pepper, a rise in that of crates 

 of rotten cabbages, or other serious events of this kind, 

 which cause fleets to be manned and set people face to 

 face intent upon one another's extermination. The 

 insect does not aim at so much glory. It confines itself 

 to showing us life in the inexhaustible variety of its mani- 

 festations ; it helps us to decipher in some small measure 

 the obscurest book of all, the book of ourselves. 



The insect is easy to obtain, cheap to feed and not 

 repulsive to examine organically ; and it lends itself far 



