It is pronounced sufficiently spacious and comfortable. They introduce the treasure, they close the entrance to the corridor; and now in the propitious darkness and the warm damp, where the magnificent stercoral globe alone holds sway, the two reconciled messmates sit down face to face. Then, far from the light and the cares of day and in the great silence of the subterranean shade, solemnly commences the most fabulous banquet whereof abdominal imagination ever evoked the absolute beatitudes. For two whole months, they remain cloistered; and, with their paunches gradually hollowing out the inexhaustible sphere, definite archetypes and sovereign symbols of the pleasures of the table and the delights of the belly, they eat without stopping, without interrupting themselves for a second, day or night. And, while they gorge, steadily, with a movement perceptible and constant as that of a clock, at the rate of three millimetres a minute, an endless, unbroken ribbon unwinds and stretches itself behind them, fixing the memory and recording the hours, days and weeks of the prodigious feast. 4 After the Dung-beetle, that dolt of the company, let us greet, also in the order of the Coleoptera, the model household of _Minotaurus typhaeus_, who is pretty well-known and extremely gentle, in spite of his dreadful name. The female digs a huge burrow which is often more than a yard and a half deep and which consists of spiral staircases, landings, passages and numerous chambers. The male loads the rubbish on the three-pronged fork that surmounts his head and carries it to the entrance of the conjugal dwelling. Next, he goes into the fields in quest of the harmless droppings left by the sheep, takes them down to the first story of the crypt and reduces them to flour with his trident, while the mother, right at the bottom, collects the flour and kneads it into huge cylindrical loaves, which will presently be food for the little ones. For three whole months, until the provisions are deemed sufficient, the unfortunate husband, without taking nourishment of any kind, exhausts himself in this gigantic work. At last, his task accomplished, feeling his end at hand, so as not to encumber the house with his wretched remains, he spends his last strength in leaving the burrow, drags himself laboriously along and, lonely and resigned, knowing that he is henceforth good for nothing, goes and dies far away among the stones.