To observe it closely under such conditions would mean a loss of time and an assiduity of which I do not feel capable.

Another truffle-hunter will show us what we could hardly learn from the fly.
This is a pretty little black beetle, with a pale, velvety abdomen; a spherical insect, as large as a biggish cherry-stone.

Its official title is _Bolboceras gallicus_, Muls.

By rubbing the end of the abdomen against the edge of the wing-cases it produces a gentle chirping sound like the cheeping of nestlings when the mother-bird returns to the nest with food.

The male wears a graceful horn on his head; a duplicate, in little, of that of the _Copris hispanus_.
Deceived by this horn, I at first took the insect for a member of the corporation of dung-beetles, and as such I reared it in captivity.