This illusion of varying distance is produced in two ways. The sounds become loud or soft, open or muffled, according to the exact part of the lower wing-case that is pressed by the bow. And they are also modified by the position of the wing-cases. For the loud sounds these are raised to their full height: for the muffled sounds they are lowered more or less. The pale Cricket misleads those who hunt for him by pressing the edges of his vibrating flaps against his soft body. I know no prettier or more limpid insect-song than his, heard in the deep stillness of an August evening. How often have I lain down on the ground among the rosemary bushes of my harmas, to listen to the delightful concert! The Italian Cricket swarms in my enclosure. Every tuft of red-flowering rock-rose has its chorister; so has every clump of lavender. The bushy arbutus-shrubs, the turpentine-trees, all become orchestras. And in its clear voice, so full of charm, the whole of this little world, from every shrub and every branch, sings of the gladness of life. High up above my head the Swan stretches its great cross along the Milky Way: below, all round me, the insect’s symphony rises and falls. Infinitesimal life telling its joys makes me forget the pageant of the stars. Those celestial eyes look down upon me, placid and cold, but do not stir a fibre within me. Why? They lack the great secret—life. Our reason tells us, it is true, that those suns warm worlds like ours; but when all is said, this belief is no more than a guess, it is not a certainty. In your company, on the contrary, O my Cricket, I feel the throbbing of life, which is the soul of our lump of clay; and that is why, under my rosemary-hedge, I give but an absent glance at the constellation of the Swan and devote all my attention to your serenade! A living speck—the merest dab of life—capable of pleasure and pain, is far more interesting to me than all the immensities of mere matter. CHAPTER XIII THE SISYPHUS You are not tired, I hope, of hearing about the Scavenger Beetles with a talent for making balls. I have told you of the Sacred Beetle and of the Spanish Copris, and now I wish to say a few words of yet another of these creatures. In the insect world we meet with a great many model mothers: it is only fair, for once to draw attention to a good father.