112 INSECTS ABROAD. 



the hind legs, slie works backwards, pushing the ball along 

 innch as a horse backs a cart. 



Her perseverance in this work is really wonderful. The task 

 is a very hard one, for the insect cannot see where she is going, 

 and is just as likely as not to push the ball over a steep and 

 stony hillock which she might have skirted without the least 

 difficulty. When quite tired out, she rests for a while and then 

 sets off again on her travels, seldom failing in the end to bring 

 her labours to a successful conclusion. Her work is the harder 

 because the ball is never quite spherical. At first it is made 

 . rather at random, and by degrees becomes more rounded as it is 

 rolled, just as a great snowball becomes rounder as w^ell as 

 larger while it is rolled through the snow. Still, the ball is 

 never a smooth sphere, but is of an irregular outline, so tliat the 

 difficulty of rolling it is much increased. 



There are two points in connection with this ball which are 

 worthy of notice, the first being the instinctive attachment which 

 the Beetle feels towards it, and the second the utter want of 

 reason in such attachment. It is hardly possible to induce one 

 of these insects to abandon the ball wdiich contains her egg until 

 she has laid it safely beneath the earth. But she cannot recog- 

 nise her own ball from that of any other Beetle; and if two 

 females be engaged in the task of depositing their eggs, and the 

 balls be exchanged, neither insect seems to be conscious of the 

 deception, but labours as cheerfully for the ball which contains 

 her neiglibour's egg as she did for that which held her own. 



For the perfectly instinctive and wdiolly irrational attachment 

 to the egg-ball, we have a parallel in our own country. There 

 are certain little black-brown, swift-footed spiders, which spin 

 no webs, but keep to the ground, on which they catch their prey 

 by fair chase. The female Wolf Spiders, as these creatures are 

 called, may be seen in the summer-time carrying about with 

 them a little silken bag containing their eggs. Nothing can 

 induce them to relinquish their treasure, and the spider would 

 sooner lose her life tlian her egg-sac. Yet if, as is the case 

 with the Scarabaus, the egg- sacs of two Wolf Spiders be ex- 

 changed, both creatures are perfectly satisfied ; and even if a 

 little particle of cotton-wool be rubbed up and placed in the 

 way of a bereaved female, she will take it up and carry it about 

 just as if it wore hor own egg-sac. 



