e of a larva; he shares in the work of transport, even if
he plays a secondary part; he watches over the pellet when the mother is
absent, seeking for a suitable site for the excavation of the cellar; he
helps in the work of digging; he carries away the rubbish from the
burrow; finally, to crown all these qualities, he is in a great measure
faithful to his spouse.

The Scarabaeus exhibits some of these characteristics. He also assists
his spouse in the preparation of pellets of dung; he also assists her to
transport the pellets, the pair facing each other and the female going
backwards. But as I have stated already, the motive of this mutual
service is selfish; the two partners labour only for their own good. The
feast is for themselves alone. In the labours that concern the family
the female Scarabaeus receives no assistance. Alone she moulds her
sphere, extracts it from the lump and rolls it backwards, with her back
to her task, in the position adopted by the male Sisyphus; alone she
excavates her burrow, and alone she buries the fruit of her labour.
Oblivious of the gravid mother and the future brood, the male gives her
no assistance in her exhausting task. How different to the little
pellet-maker, the Sisyphus!

It is now time to visit the burrow. At no very great depth we find a
narrow chamber, just large enough for the mother to move around at her
work. Its very exiguity proves that the male cannot remain underground;
so soon as the chamber is ready he must retire in order to leave the
female room to move. We have, in fact, seen that he returns to the
surface long before the female.

The contents of the cellar consist of a single pellet, a masterpiece of
plastic art. It is a miniature reproduction of the pear-shaped ball of
the Scarabaeus, a reproduction whose very smallness gives an added value
to the polish of the surface and the beauty of its curves. Its larger
diameter varies from half to three-quarters of an inch. It is the most
elegant product of the dung-beetle's art.

But this perfection is of brief duration. Very soon the little "pear"
becomes covered with gnarled excrescences, black and twisted, which
disfigure it like so many warts. Part of the surface, which is otherwise
intact, disappears under a shapeless mass. The origin of these knotted
excrescences completely deceived me at first. I suspected some
cryptogamic vegetation, some _Spheriaecaea_, for example, recognisable by
its black, knotted, inc