One more observation about the Sisyphus. My six pairs under the wire-gauze cover gave me fifty-seven inhabited pellets. This census shows an average of over nine births to each couple, a figure which the Sacred Beetle is far from reaching. To what cause are we to attribute this flourishing brood? I can see but one: the fact that the male works as well as the mother. Family burdens that would exceed the strength of one are not too heavy when there are two to bear them. CHAPTER XVI THE LUNARY COPRIS; THE BISON ONITIS Smaller than the Spanish Copris and less particular about a mild climate, the Lunary Copris (C. lunaris, Lin.) will confirm what the Sisyphus has told us of the part played by the father’s collaboration in the prosperity of the family. Our country districts cannot show his match for oddity of male attire. Like the other, he wears a horn on his forehead; in addition, he has an embattled promontory in the middle of his corselet and a halberd-point and a deep, crescent-shaped groove on his shoulders. The climate of Provence and the niggardly supply of food in a wilderness of thyme do not suit him. He wants a country that is less dry, with meadows where the patches of cattle-dung will supply him with plenty of provender. Unable to reckon on the rare specimens which we meet here from time to time, I have stocked my insect-house with strangers sent from Tournon by my daughter Aglaé. When April comes, she conducts an indefatigable search at my request. Seldom have so many Cow-claps been lifted with the point of the sunshade; seldom have delicate fingers with so much affection broken the cakes on the pastures. I thank the heroine in the name of science! Her zeal meets with due reward. I become the proud possessor of six couples, which are immediately installed in the insect-house where the Spanish Copris used to work last year. I serve up the national dish, the superlative loaf furnished by my neighbour’s Cow. There is not a sign of home-sickness among the exiles, who bravely begin their labours under the mysterious shelter of the cake. I make my first excavation in the middle of June and am delighted with what my knife gradually lays bare as it cuts up the soil in thin slices. Each couple has dug itself a splendid vaulted room in the sand, more spacious than any that the Sacred Beetle or the Spanish Copris ever showed me and with a bolder arch. The greatest breadth is fully six inches; but the ceiling is very low, rising to hardly two inches.