MINOTAURUS TYPHŒUS: FIRST ATTEMPTS AT OBSERVATION

More Beetles by Jean-Henri Fabre, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. MINOTAURUS TYPHŒUS: FIRST ATTEMPTS AT OBSERVATION

CHAPTER V. MINOTAURUS TYPHŒUS: FIRST ATTEMPTS AT OBSERVATION

Long ago, the Minotaur’s cousins, the Geotrupes, afforded me a delightfully unusual spectacle, that of a prolonged association in pairs, a real domestic couple, working in common for the children’s welfare. Philemon and Baucis, as I used to call them, prepared their board and lodging with equal ardour. Philemon, the sturdier of the two, compressed the food by pushing it with his fore-arms; Baucis explored the heap on the surface, picking out the best part and lowering by the armful the wherewithal to manufacture the enormous sausage. It was magnificent to see the mother sifting and the father compressing.

A cloud overshadowed this exquisite picture. My subjects occupied a cage wherein any inspection demanded an excavation on my part, discreetly conducted, it is true, but enough to startle the labourers and make them stop work. With unsparing patience, I thus obtained a series of snapshots which the logic of things, that delicate cinematographer, afterwards combined to form a living scene. I wished for more than this: I should have liked to observe the couple in continuous action, from the beginning to the end of their task. I had to abandon the idea, so impossible did it seem to me to observe the mysterious underground happenings without perturbing excavations.

To-day, my ambition to achieve the impossible has returned. The Minotaur proclaims himself a rival of the Geotrupes; he even appears to be their superior. I propose to follow his actions underground, at a depth of a yard and more, completely at my ease, without in any way distracting the insect from its occupations. To do this I shall need the eyes of a Lynx, which are said to be capable of piercing the opaquest night, whereas I have only my ingenuity to fall back upon in endeavouring to see plainly in the dark. Let us see what it can do.

To begin with, the direction of the burrow enables me to foresee that my plan is not altogether absurd. When digging her nest, the Minotaur descends perpendicularly. If she worked at random, following all sorts of directions, excavation would demand an infinite area of soil, out of all proportion to the means at my disposal. Well, her invariable adherence to the perpendicular informs me that I need not trouble about the quantity of sand available, but only about the depth of the bed. In these conditions, the undertaking is not unreasonable.

As good luck will have it, I possess a glass tube which has long been diverted from chemistry and placed at the service of entomology. It is a yard or more in length, and over an inch in width. If fixed in a vertical position, it will do, I think, for the Minotaur’s shaft. I close one end with a plug and fill the tube with a mixture of fine sand and moist clay soil, packing the mixture in layers with a ramrod. This column will be the plot of ground allotted to the digger to work in.

But it must be kept upright and completed with different accessories essential to successful operation. For this purpose, three bamboo canes are planted in the earth contained in a large flower-pot. Joined at their tips, they form a tripod, a frame supporting the whole structure. The tube is set up in the centre of the triangular base. A small earthenware pie-dish with a hole made in the bottom, receives the open upper end, which projects a little and holds a layer of earth that comes level with the brim. This will represent, around the mouth of the shaft, the space in which the insect can attend to its business, either to shoot the rubbish from the shaft or to gather the provisions round about. Lastly, a glass bell, fitting into the dish, prevents escape and preserves the slight quantity of moisture needed. A few supporting strings and bits of wire keep the whole thing firmly fixed.

We must not overlook one most important detail. The diameter of the tube is about twice that of the natural burrow. Therefore, if the insect digs along the axis and in an exactly perpendicular direction, it will have at its disposal more than the required width. It will obtain a channel lined on every side by a wall of sand a few millimetres thick. We may however assume that the digger, knowing nothing of geometrical precision and ignorant of the conditions provided for it, will take no account of the axis and will deviate from it to one side or the other. Moreover, the least additional resistance in the substance traversed will cause the Beetle to turn aside slightly, now hither, now thither. Consequently the glass wall will be completely denuded at sundry points; windows will be formed, chinks upon which I rely to make observation possible, but which will be hateful to the darkness-loving workers.

To make sure of these windows and save the insect from them, I sheath the tube in a few cardboard sheaths which can be gently slipped up and down and which fit inside one another. With this arrangement, I shall be able, when required, and without distracting the insect from its work, to create alternately, by a simple movement of the thumb, a little light for myself and darkness for the Beetle. The distribution of the movable sheaths, which slip up or down as needed, will allow the tube to be examined from end to end as and when the accidents of boring open up new windows.

A last precaution is necessary. If I merely put the couple simply in the dish surmounted by the bell-glass, it is probable that the prisoners will not realize what a small portion of the soil is available for digging. It will be best for me to teach them the right spot in the centre of an impregnable area. For this purpose, I leave the top of the tube empty to a depth of a few fingers’-breadths; and, as a glass wall would be impossible to climb, I provide this part with a lift, that is to say, I line it with wire-gauze. When this is done, the two insects, male and female, unearthed together from their natural burrow, are inserted into this entrance-hall, where they will find their familiar environment, the sandy soil. With a little food scattered about the pit, it will be enough, I hope, to make them like their peculiar lodging.

What results shall I obtain with my rustic apparatus, so long planned by the fireside during the winter evenings? Certainly it is not much to look at; it would gain a poor reception in the laboratories that are constantly perfecting their equipment. It is peasant’s work, a clumsy combination of common objects. I agree; but let us remember that, in the pursuit of truth, the poor and simple are by no means inferior to the most magnificent. My arrangement of three bamboo canes has given me delightful moments; it has provided me with some fascinating glimpses which I will try to set forth.

In March, at the time of the great nest-building excavations, I dig up a couple in the fields. I install them in my apparatus. In case provisions should be needed as a restorative during the laborious sinking of the shaft, I place a few Sheep-droppings under the glass bell, near the mouth of the tube. The trick of the empty entrance-hall, calculated to bring the prisoners into immediate touch with the workable column of earth, succeeds to perfection. Soon after their installation, the captives have recovered from their excitement and are diligently at work.

They were taken from their home in the full ardour of excavation and they continue in my garden the task which I interrupted. It is true that I changed the site of their workshop as quickly as I could return from their place of origin, which was not far away. Their zeal has not had time to grow cold. They were digging just before removal and they continue to dig. Time is pressing; the pair will not willingly down tools, even after an upheaval which one would think must have demoralized them.

As I anticipated, the digging assumes an eccentric direction, producing in the sandy wall a few gaps in which the glass is laid bare. These peep-holes are none too satisfactory as regards my plans; while some of them permit of clear observation, the greater number are obscured by an earthy veil. Besides, they are not permanent. New ones open daily, while others close. These continual variations are due to the rubbish which, laboriously hoisted outside, rubs against the wall, plastering or denuding this point or that. I take advantage of these fortuitous openings to examine as best I may, when the light falls at a favourable angle, the interesting things happening inside the tube.

I see over and over again, at my leisure, as often as I please and over a protracted period, what the exhausting inspection of the natural burrows showed me in rare and fleeting glimpses. The mother is always ahead, in the post of honour, at the working-face. Alone she toils and moils, with her clypeus; alone she scrapes and digs, with the harrow of her toothed arms: her mate never relieves her. The father is always in the rear, very busy too, but on another job. His task it is to carry the loosened soil outside and to clear up as the pioneer goes deeper and deeper.

This labour of his is no slight affair, as we may judge from the mound which he throws up when plying his trade in the meadows. It is a big heap of earthen plugs, of cylinders mostly measuring an inch in length. You need only examine the pieces to see that the navvy handles blocks of Cyclopean dimensions. He does not carry off the excavated soil fragment by fragment; he ejects it in huge agglomerations.

What should we think of a miner who was obliged to hoist to the surface, to a height of some hundreds of feet, an overpoweringly heavy hod of coal up a narrow, perpendicular shaft which could be climbed only by the use of his knees and elbows? The Minotaur father’s ordinary task is the equivalent of this feat of strength. He performs it with great dexterity. How does he manage to do it? Our bamboo tripod will tell us.

From time to time, the denuded points of the tube afford me a glimpse of his doings. He is stationed at the digger’s heels, raking the loosened soil towards him by the armful. He kneads it, as its moisture enables him to do, he works it up into a plug which he thrusts back into the shaft. Then the plug begins to move. The load precedes him; and he pushes it from behind with his three-pronged fork. The work of transport would be a magnificent sight did the accidental peep-holes in the gallery lend themselves better to our curiosity. Unfortunately, they are few and small and none too clear.

Let us try to devise something better. In a dimly-lit corner of my study I hang perpendicularly a glass tube of smaller calibre than the first. I leave it as it is, unprovided with an opaque sheath. At the bottom is a nine-inch column of earth. All the rest is empty and may be easily observed, if the Minotaurs consent to work under such disadvantageous conditions. Provided that the experiment be not unduly prolonged, they do consent and very readily, so imperious is the need of a burrow as laying-time draws nigh.

I extract from the soil a couple engaged in excavating their natural shaft and place them in the glass tube. Next morning I find them continuing their interrupted business in broad daylight. Seated a little way off, in the shadow of the corner in which the apparatus hangs, I watch the operation, amazed by what I see. The mother digs. The father, at some distance, waits until the heap of rubbish is beginning to hamper the worker’s movements. Then he approaches. By small armfuls he draws towards him and slips beneath his abdomen the shifted earth, which, being plastic, forms into a ball under the pressure of the hind-legs.

The Beetle now turns about beneath the load. With the trident driven into the bundle, as a pitchfork is driven into a truss of hay, before tossing it into the loft, the fore-legs, with their wide, toothed shanks, gripping the load and preventing it from crumbling, he pushes with all his might. And cheerily! The thing moves and ascends, very slowly, it is true, but still it ascends! How is it done, seeing that the too smooth surface of the glass acts as an absolute check to the upward movement?

The insurmountable difficulty has been provided for. I selected a clay soil likely to leave a trace of its passage. With the cart before the horse, the load itself sands the road and makes it practicable; in rubbing past every portion of the wall, it leaves particles of earth which constitute so many points of purchase. Therefore, as he pushes his burden upwards, the Beetle finds behind it a roughened surface which affords him a footing as he climbs.

This, after all, is all he needs, though it involves occasional slips and efforts to retain his balance, which are unknown in the natural shaft. When he comes to a certain distance from the opening, he leaves his clod, which, shaped by the tube, remains in its place, motionless. He returns to the bottom, not by allowing himself to fall suddenly, but gradually and carefully, by means of the footholds by which he made his way up. A second pellet is hoisted up and welded to the first. A third follows. At length, with a last effort, he pushes out the whole thing in a single plug.

This fractional division is a judicious method. Because of the enormous amount of friction in the narrow and uneven natural shaft, the Beetle would never succeed in hoisting the great cylinders of his mound in one lump; he carries them up in loads which are not beyond his powers and which are afterwards joined and welded together.

I am inclined to believe that this work of assembling the component parts is performed in the slightly sloping vestibule which usually precedes the perpendicular shaft. Here no doubt the successive clods are compressed into one very heavy cylinder, which is yet easily moved along an almost horizontal road. Then the Minotaur, with a last thrust of his trident, pushes out the lump, which joins the others on the sides of the mound. They are like so many blocks of hewn stone forbidding access to the home. The rubbish thus suitably moulded provides a Cyclopean system of fortification.

In the glass tube, the climbing is such difficult work that the insect is soon discouraged. The frail footholds left by the load crumble and fall off, swept away by the tarsi vainly seeking a support; and the tube again becomes smooth over wide extents of its surface. The climber ends by giving up struggling against the impossible; he abandons his bundle and drops to the bottom. The works cease henceforth; the couple have recognized the treachery of their strange dwelling. Both of them try to get away. Their uneasiness is betrayed by continual attempts to escape. I set them free. They have told me all that they were able to tell me in conditions so favourable to me and so bad for themselves.

To return to the large apparatus, where the work is proceeding correctly. The boring, begun in March, finishes by the middle of April. From this time onward, my daily visits no longer show me on the top of the mound a plug of fresh earth, marking a recent ejection of rubbish.

It must therefore take two or three weeks at least to excavate the dwelling. My observations in the open even lead me to think that a month or longer is not excessive. My two captives, disturbed in the midst of their earlier labours and pressed for time by the lateness of the season, cut short this work, which for that matter they were unable to continue when the cork stopper appeared at the bottom of the tube as an insuperable obstacle. The others, working in freedom, have an unlimited depth of sand at their disposal. They have plenty of leisure, if they start work in good time. Even before the end of February we see plenty of mounds. Later, these will mark the sites of shafts four or five feet deep. Such pits as these require a full month’s labour, if not more.

Now what do the two well-sinkers eat, during this long period, to keep up their strength? Nothing, absolutely nothing, we are told by the two guests in my apparatus. Neither of them appears looking for food on the surface of the pie-dish. The mother does not leave the bottom for a moment; the father alone goes up and down. When he comes up, it is always with a load of rubbish. I am warned of his arrival by the hillock which shakes and partly crumbles under the impetus of the navvy and his load; but the Beetle himself does not appear, for the mouth of the erupting cone remains closed by the plug ejected. Everything happens in secret, sheltered from the indiscretion of the light. In the same way, in the fields, any burrow in process of construction remains closed until it is quite finished.

This, it is true, does not prove the absolute absence of provisions, for the father might go out at night, collect a few pellets in the neighbourhood of the shaft, push them in, go indoors again and shut up the house. In this way the couple would have enough bread in the larder to last them for a few days. This explanation must be abandoned, as we are definitely taught by what happens in my rearing-appliance.

Foreseeing a need of food, I had supplied the dish with a few droppings. When the excavation-works were finished, I found these pellets untouched and undiminished in number. The father, supposing him to go strolling about at night, could not fail to see them. He had taken no notice of them.

The peasants in my neighbourhood, rude tillers of the soil, have four meals a day. At early dawn, on rising, a hunk of bread and a few dried figs, for a snack, as they put it. In the fields, at nine o’clock, the wife brings the soup and its complement of anchovies and olives, which give a man an honest thirst. On the stroke of two, in the shade of a hedge, lunch is taken from the wallet, consisting of almonds and bread and cheese. This is followed by a sleep in the hottest part of the day. When night falls, they go home, where the housewife has made ready a salad of lettuces and a dish of fried potatoes seasoned with onions. All told, a great deal of eating to a moderate amount of work.

Ah, how greatly superior is the Minotaur! For a month and longer, without taking any food, he works like a madman and is always fit and strong. If I told my neighbours, the chawbacons, that in a certain world the labourer does a month’s hard work without a bite of food, they would reply with an incredulous guffaw. If I say as much to the chewers of ideas, perhaps I shall scandalize them.

No matter: let me repeat what the Minotaur told me. The chemical energy derived from nourishment is not the only origin of animal activity. As a source of life there is something better than digested food. What? How can I tell? Apparently the effluvia, known or unknown, emanating from the sun and transformed by the organism into a mechanical equivalent. So we were told before by the Scorpion and the Spider;1 So we are told now by the Minotaur, who is more convincing with his arduous calling. He does not eat, yet he is a frantic worker.

The insect world is fruitful in surprises. The three-pronged Dung-beetle, an accomplished faster and nevertheless a remarkable labourer, sets us a magnificent problem. Is it not possible that on distant planets, governed by another sun, green, blue, yellow or red, life might be exempt from the ignominy of the stomach, that lamentable source of atrocities, and maintain its activities merely with the aid of the radiations flooding that corner of the universe? Shall we ever know? I sincerely hope so, our earth being but a stage towards a better world, in which true happiness might well lie in fathoming more and more deeply the unfathomable secret of things.

Let us leave these nebulous heights and return to the workaday question of the Minotaur’s affairs. The burrow is ready; it is time to establish the family. I am apprised of this by seeing the father for the first time venture abroad in the daylight. He is very busy exploring the expanse of the dish. What is he looking for? He seems to be seeking provisions for the coming brood. This is the moment to interfere.

To facilitate observation, I make a clean sweep. I clear the site of its mound, under which lie buried the victuals which I deemed necessary at the outset, but which have remained untouched. These old pellets, soiled with earth, are discarded and replaced by others, a dozen in number, distributed around the mouth of the shaft. There are, as I say, precisely twelve, arranged in groups of three, which will make it easier and quicker for me to count them daily through the haze covering the bell. A moderate watering, effected from time to time on the border of soil which surrounds the bell and keeps it in position, produces a humid atmosphere inside the apparatus similar to that of the depths favoured by the Minotaur. This element of success should not be omitted. Lastly, I keep a current account in which I enter day by day the pieces stored away. There were twelve at the beginning. If these are exhausted, we shall replace them as often as may be necessary.

I have not to wait long for the results of my preparations. That same evening, watching from a distance, I catch sight of the father leaving his home. He makes for the pellets, chooses one that suits him and, with little taps of his head, rolls it as he might roll a barrel. I steal up softly to observe the action. Forthwith the Beetle, timid to excess, abandons his morsel and dives down the shaft. The distrustful fellow has seen me; he has perceived some enormous and suspicious-looking thing moving near at hand. This is more than enough to alarm him and make him postpone his harvesting. He will not reappear until perfect quiet is restored.

I now know: he who wishes to watch the gathering of the provisions must display the utmost patience and discretion. I accept the facts: I will be discreet and patient. On the following days, at different hours, I try again, silently and slyly, until success rewards me for my assiduous vigil.

Again and again I see the Minotaur go his harvesting rounds. It is always the male and the male alone that comes out and goes in quest of supplies; the mother never, never on any account, shows herself, being absorbed in other occupations at the bottom of the burrow. The provisions are transported sparingly. Down below, it seems, the culinary preparations are minute and deliberate; the housewife must be given time to work up the morsels lowered to her before we bring others which would encumber the workshop and hinder the manipulation. In ten days, beginning with the 13th of April, the date on which the male leaves home for the first time, I count twenty-three pellets stored away, say an average of a little over two in the twenty-four hours. In all, ten days’ harvesting and two dozen morsels to manufacture the sausage which will form the ration of one grub.

Let us try to catch a glimpse of the couple’s behaviour in private. In this connection I can have recourse to two methods, which, if employed in alternation and with perseverance, may give me the much-desired spectacle in a fragmentary form. In the first place, there is a large tripod. The narrow column of earth affords, as we know, incidental peep-holes, situated at different heights. I avail myself of these to take a glance at what happens inside. In the second place, a perpendicular, uncovered tube, the same which I used when investigating the climbing, receives a couple removed from the ground a few hours before, while actively engaged on preparing the foodstuffs.

I quite expect that my device will fail to have any lasting effect. Soon demoralized by the peculiarity of their new residence, the two insects will refuse to work, will become restless and wish to get away. No matter: before their nest-building ardour dies down, they may be able to supply me with valuable details. On combining the facts collected by means of the two methods, I obtain the following data.

The father goes out and selects a pellet whose length is greater than the diameter of the pit. He conveys it to the mouth, either backwards, by dragging it with his fore-feet, or straight ahead, by rolling it with little thrusts of his clypeus. He reaches the edge of the hole. Will he fling the lump down the precipice with one last push? Not at all: he has plans that are incompatible with a violent fall.

He enters, clasping the pellet with his legs and taking care to insert it by one end. On reaching a certain distance from the bottom, he has only to slant the piece slightly to make it find a support at its two ends against the walls of the shaft: this because of the greater length of its main axis. He thus obtains a sort of temporary flooring able to bear the load of two or three pellets. The whole forms the workshop in which the father will perform his task without disturbing the mother, who is herself engaged below. It is the mill whence will be lowered the meal for making the cakes.

The miller is well-equipped for his work. Look at his trident. On the solid foundation of the corselet stand three sharp spears, the two outer ones long, the middle one short, all three pointing forwards. What purpose does this weapon serve? At first sight, one would take it for a mere masculine decoration, the corporation of Dung-beetles boasting many such, of various forms. Well, it is something more than an ornament: the Minotaur turns his gaud into a tool.

The three points of unequal length describe a concave arc, wide enough to admit a spherical dropping. Standing on his incomplete and quaking floor, which demands the employment of his four hind-legs, propped against the walls of the shaft, how will the Beetle manage to keep the slippery pellet in position and break it up? Let us watch him at work.

Stooping a little, he drives his fork into the piece, which is thenceforth rendered stationary, for it is held in the crescent-shaped jaws of the implement. The fore-legs are free; with their toothed shanks they can saw the morsel, shred it and reduce it to fragments which gradually fall through the gaps in the flooring and reach the mother below.

The substance which the miller shoots down is not a flour passed through the bolting-sieve, but rather a coarse meal, a mixture of pulverized remnants and of pieces hardly ground at all. Incomplete though it be, this preliminary grinding will be of the greatest assistance to the mother in her tedious job of bread-making: it will shorten the work and allow the best and the second best to be separated forthwith. When everything on the upper story, including the floor itself, is ground to powder, the horned miller returns to the open air, gathers a fresh harvest and starts his work of crumbling anew entirely at his leisure.

Nor is the baker inactive in her kitchen. She collects the remnants pouring down around her, subdivides them yet further, refines them and sorts them. This, the tenderer part, for the central crumb; that, tougher, for the crust of the loaf. Turning this way and that, she pats the material with the battledore of her flat arms; she arranges it in layers, which presently she compresses by stamping on them where they lie, much after the manner of a vintager treading his grapes. Rendered firm and compact, the mass will keep better. After some ten days of this united labour, the couple at last obtain the long, cylindrical loaf. The father has done the grinding, the mother the kneading.

On the 24th of April, everything being now in order, the male leaves the tube of my apparatus. He roams about in the bell-glass, heedless of my presence, he who was at first so timid and apt to dive down the shaft at the first sight of me. He is indifferent to food. A few pellets remain on the surface. He comes upon them at every moment; he disdainfully passes them by. He has but one wish, to get away as fast as he can. This is shown by his restless marching and countermarching, by his continual attempts to scale the glass wall. He tumbles over, recovers his footing and begins all over again indefinitely, giving not a thought to the burrow, which he will never re-enter.

I let the desperate Beetle exhaust himself for twenty-four hours in vain attempts at escape. Let us come to his assistance now and restore his freedom. Or rather no, for this would mean that we should lose sight of him and remain ignorant of the object of his perturbation. I have a very large unoccupied rearing-cage. I house the Minotaur in this cage, where he will have plenty of flying-room, choice victuals and sunlight. Next morning, in spite of all these luxuries, I find him lying on his back, with his legs stiff and stark. He is dead. The gallant fellow, having fulfilled his duties as the father of a family, felt his strength failing him; and this was the cause of his restlessness. He was anxious to go and die by himself, far away, so as not to defile the home with a corpse and trouble the widow in her subsequent operations. I admire this stoical resignation on the insect’s part.

If it were an isolated, casual instance, resulting perhaps from a defective installation, there would be no reason to dwell upon the Beetle who met with his death in my apparatus. But here is something that complicates matters. In the open fields, when May is at hand, I often happen upon Minotaurs shrivelling in the sun; and these corpses are those of males, always males, with very few exceptions.

Another and a very significant detail is supplied by a cage in which I several times tried to rear the insect. As the bed of soil, some eighteen inches thick, was not deep enough, the prisoners absolutely refused to build their nests in it. Apart from this, the other, usual operations were pursued according to rule. Well, from the end of April onwards, the males ascend to the surface, one at a time. For a couple of days they wander about the trellis-work, anxious to get away. At last they tumble off, lie on their backs and slowly give up the ghost. Age has killed them.

In the first week of June, I dig up the soil in the cage from top to bottom. Of the fifteen males who were there at the beginning, hardly one remains. All have died; all the females survive. The harsh law is therefore inevitable. After helping with his hod in the lengthy task of sinking the shaft, after amassing suitable provisions and grinding the meal, the industrious trident-bearer goes away to die far from home.

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