110 INSECTS ABROAD. 



carrying them deeply into the earth so as to fertilize the soil and 

 improve the crop of grass. 



How effectively they perform this duty is scarcely to be 

 known except by those who watch the habits of the insects. 

 Last year I was much struck with the amount of work done 

 by these Beetles. Not far from my house there is a field wdiich 

 is used as pasture land for cattle, and which is in consequence 

 thickly sprinkled with their droppings. There had been a 

 succession of moderately warm and very wet days, so that the 

 ground was quite soaked with the rain. Having to search for 

 certain wood-boring insects, I had to pass through the field, and 

 was greatly struck with the appearance which it presented. Its 

 whole surface was literally riddled with the holes of the Dor 

 Beetles, the burrows being placed so closely together that every 

 square foot of grouijd contained forty or fifty of them. Here, 

 then, we have a vast army of agricultural labourers, working 

 without wages, and doing in a short time the work which would 

 have occupied a strong body of men for a considerable time, 

 and would have forced them besides to take up the turf and 

 re-lay it. 



In warmer lands than ours similar Beetles also exist, but 

 there are others who perform the same work in a different 

 manner, as we shall presently see. The number and variety ot 

 these insects are enormous. Some of them are quite small, 

 soberly coloured, and smooth surfaced. Others are of huge 

 dimensions, magnificently coloured, and furnished with the 

 strongest imaginable projections from the head and thorax. 

 Indeed, so important are they from their great numbers, the 

 offices which they fulfil, the gorgeous colouring and gigantic 

 dimensions of many of the species, that the late F. W. Hope 

 told me that he very much doubted whether the Lamellicorn 

 Beetles ought not to be placed at the head of the insects instead 

 of the Geodephaga. 



"V\"e will begin the history of the Lamellicorns with the Scara- 

 beides, one of which is the most celebrated Beetle of their race — 

 perhaps the most celebrated insect in the world. This is the 

 Sacred Scarabteus {Atcuclms sacer), which was held in such 

 veneration by the ancient Egyptians, and which is represented 

 in such profusion on tlieir tombs and even on their personal 



