It is strange that the Hymenopteron, the most gifted of the industrial insects, should know nothing of paternal labour. The male, in whom one would think that the needs of the young ought to develop the highest aptitudes, remains as dull-witted as a Butterfly, whose family is established at so small a cost. The bestowal of instinct baffles our most reasonable conjectures. It baffles them so thoroughly that we are extremely surprised when we find in the muck-raker the noble prerogative denied to the honey-gatherer. Various Dung-beetles are accustomed to help in the burden of housekeeping and know the value of working in double harness. Remember the Geotrupes couple, preparing their larva’s portion together; think of the father lending his mate the assistance of his powerful press in the manufacture of the tight-packed sausages, a splendid example of domestic habits and one extremely surprising amid the general egoism. To this example, hitherto unique, my constant studies of the subject enable me to-day to add three others, which are equally interesting; and all three are likewise furnished by the Dung-beetle guild. I will describe them, but briefly, for in many particulars their story is the same as that of the Sacred Beetle, the Spanish Copris and the others. The first case is that of the Sisyphus (S. Schæfferi, Lin.), the smallest and most zealous of our pill-rollers. He is the liveliest and most agile of them all, recking nothing of awkward somersaults and headlong falls on the impossible tracks to which his obstinacy brings him back again and again. It was in memory of these wild gymnastics that Latreille gave him the name of Sisyphus, famous in the annals of Tartarus. The unhappy wretch had the terrible task of having to roll a huge stone up hill; and each time he had toiled to the top of the mountain the stone would slip from his grasp and roll to the bottom. Try again, poor Sisyphus, try again and go on trying: your punishment will not be over until the rock is firmly fixed up there. I like this myth. It is in a fashion the history of a good many of us, not detestable scoundrels worthy of eternal torments, but decent, hard-working folk, doing their duty by their neighbours. They have one crime only to expiate: that of poverty. So far as I am concerned, for half a century and more I have painfully climbed that steep ascent, leaving garments stained with blood and sweat on its sharp crags; I have strained every nerve, drained myself dry, spent my strength recklessly in the struggle to hoist up to safety that crushing burden, my daily bread; and hardly is the loaf balanced when it slips off, slides down and is lost in the abyss. Try again, poor Sisyphus, try again until the load, falling for the last time, smashes your head and sets you free at last.