To-day the blackboard has a rest; it is a holiday. We rise early, in view of the intended expedition; so early that we must set out fasting. But no matter; when we are hungry we shall rest in the shade, and you will find in my knapsack the usual viaticum--apples and a crust of bread. The month of May is near; the Sisyphus should have appeared. Now we must explore at the foot of the mountain, the scanty pastures through which the herds have passed; we must break with our fingers, one by one, the cakes of sheep-dung dried by the sun, but still retaining a spot of moisture in the centre. There we shall find Sisyphus, cowering and waiting until the evening for fresher pasturage. Possessed of this secret, which I learned from previous fortuitous discoveries, little Paul immediately becomes a master in the art of dislodging the beetle. He shows such zeal, has such an instinct for likely hiding-places, that after a brief search I am rich beyond my ambitions. Behold me the owner of six couples of Sisyphus beetles: an unheard-of number, which I had never hoped to obtain. For their maintenance a wire-gauze cover suffices, with a bed of sand and diet to their taste. They are very small, scarcely larger than a cherry-stone. Their shape is extremely curious. The body is dumpy, tapering to an acorn-shaped posterior; the legs are very long, resembling those of the spider when outspread; the hinder legs are disproportionately long and curved, being thus excellently adapted to enlace and press the little pilule of dung. Mating takes place towards the beginning of May, on the surface of the soil, among the remains of the sheep-dung on which the beetles have been feeding. Soon the moment for establishing the family arrives. With equal zeal the two partners take part in the kneading, transport, and baking of the food for their offspring. With the file-like forelegs a morsel of convenient size is shaped from the piece of dung placed in the cage. Father and mother manipulate the piece together, striking it blows with their claws, compressing it, and shaping it into a ball about the size of a big pea. As in the case of the _Scarabaeus sacer_, the exact spherical form is produced without the mechanical device of rolling the ball. Before it is moved, even before it is cut loose from its point of support, the fragment is modelled into the shape of a sphere. The beetle as geometer is aware of the form best adapted to the long preservation of preserved foods.