d Scarabaeus, the Spanish Copris, and
others.

The first example is the Sisyphus beetle (_Sisyphus Schaefferi_, Lin.),
the smallest and most industrious of our pill-makers. It has no equal in
lively agility, grotesque somersaults, and sudden tumbles down the
impossible paths or over the impracticable obstacles to which its
obstinacy is perpetually leading it. In allusion to these frantic
gymnastics Latreille has given the insect the name of Sisyphus, after
the celebrated inmate of the classic Hades. This unhappy spirit
underwent terrible exertions in his efforts to heave to the top of a
mountain an enormous rock, which always escaped him at the moment of
attaining the summit, and rolled back to the foot of the slope. Begin
again, poor Sisyphus, begin again, begin again always! Your torments
will never cease until the rock is firmly placed upon the summit of the
mountain.

I like this myth. It is, in a way, the history of many of us; not odious
scoundrels worthy of eternal torments, but worthy and laborious folk,
useful to their neighbours. One crime alone is theirs to expiate: the
crime of poverty. Half a century or more ago, for my own part, I left
many blood-stained tatters on the crags of the inhospitable mountain; I
sweated, strained every nerve, exhausted my veins, spent without
reckoning my reserves of energy, in order to carry upward and lodge in
a place of security that crushing burden, my daily bread; and hardly was
the load balanced but it once more slipped downwards, fell, and was
engulfed. Begin again, poor Sisyphus; begin again, until your burden,
falling for the last time, shall crush your head and set you free at
length.

The Sisyphus of the naturalists knows nothing of these tribulations.
Agile and lively, careless of slope or precipice, he trundles his load,
which is sometimes food for himself, sometimes for his offspring. He is
very rare hereabouts; I should never have succeeded in obtaining a
sufficient number of specimens for my purpose but for an assistant whom
I may opportunely present to the reader, for he will be mentioned again
in these recitals.

This is my son, little Paul, aged seven. An assiduous companion of the
chase, he knows better than any one of his age the secrets of the
Cigale, the Cricket, and especially of the dung-beetle, his great
delight. At a distance of twenty yards his clear sight distinguishes the
refuse-tip of a beetle's burrow from a chance lump of earth; his fine
ea