198 AFFECTION "OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG. 



such an agent. A wild bee or a Sphex, for instance, will dig a hole in a 

 hard bank of earth some inches deep and five or six times its own size, and 

 labour unremittingly at this arduous undertaking for several days, scarcely 

 allowing itself a moment for eating or repose. It will then occupy as 

 much time in searching for a store of food ; and no sooner is this task 

 finished, than it will set about repeating the process, and before it dies 

 will have completed five or six similar cells or even more. If you would 

 estimate this industry at its proper value, you should reflect what kind of 

 exertion it would require in a man to dig in a few days out of hard clay or 

 sand, with no other tools than his nails and teeth, five or six caverns 

 twenty feet deep and four or five wide — for such an undertaking would 

 not be comparatively greater than that of the insects in question. 



Similar laborious exertions are not confined to the bee or Sphex tribe. 

 Several beetles in depositing their eggs exhibit examples of industry equally 

 extraordinary. The common dor or clock {Geotnipes sfercoraiius), which 

 may be found beneath every heap of dung, digs a deep cylindrical hole, and 

 carrying down a mass of the dung to the bottom, in it deposits its eggs. And 

 many of the species of the Scarabceidte^ roll together wet dung into round 

 pellets, deposit an egg in the midst of each, and when dry push them back- 

 wards by their hind feet, sometimes three or four assisting, into holes of the 

 surprising depth of three feet, which they have previously dug for their 

 reception, and which are often several yards distant. Frequently the road 

 lies across a depression in the surface, and the pellet when nearly pushed 

 to the summit rolls back again. But our patient Sisyphi are not easily 

 discouraged. They repeat their efforts again and again, and in the end 

 their perseverance is rewarded by success.'* The attention of these insects 

 to their egg-balls is so remarkable, that it was observed in the earliest ages, 

 and is mentioned by ancient writers, but with the addition of many fables, 

 as that they were all of the male sex, that they became young again every 

 year, that they rolled the pellets containing their eggs from sunrise to sunset 

 every day, for twenty-eight days without intermission^, &c. It is one of 



1 Mr. W. S. MacLeay in his very remarkable and learned work {HorcB Entomo- 

 hgica) has very properly restored its name to the true Scarabceus of the ancients, 

 which gives its name to this group. 



2 The precise mode in which these dung pellets are formed, and the object of roll- 

 ing them greater distances than would seem to be required for merely depositing 

 them in their holes, which it might have been supposed would, like those of our 

 common dung-beetle, be made close to (if not under) the dung employed, do not 

 appear to have been very clearly ascertained. According to a newspajper extract 

 given from the travels of an author, whose name is not given, the Scarahmidx fre- 

 quenting the Egyptian deserts form their egg-balls of a mixture of clay (sand?) 

 and camel's dung, and they keep rolling them the whole day, apparently 'to dry the 

 surface, as they ceased rolling them if clouds overshadowed the sun in the day time ; 

 and invariably at sunset (thus confirming the ancient idea) betaking themselves to 

 their holes, and leaving their egg-balls, till sunrise the next day. If this account be 

 supposed to be correct only as respects clay (or sand) entering into the composition 

 rrf the exterior crust of the egg-balls, it may perhaps throw light on the formation 

 of the singular shot-like balls, two inches in diameter, with a very hard shell, of 

 which Col. Sykes has given an interesting account {Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond. i. 130.), 

 which produced specimens of the Indian dung-beetle, Copris 3Iidas. In fact, the 

 mere long rolling of a ball of very moist dung upon sand or powdery clay would 

 press so much of either into the surfoce as to give it when drj' a very hard shell, 

 which would remain much as Col. Sykes describes when the larva had eaten all the 

 central portion of dung. 



5 MouflFet, 163. 



