26 INSECT LIFE i 



rubies for other species. Sanitary principles 

 require that this marvellous change be made as 

 rapidly as possible ; therefore the Scarabaeus is 

 endowed with a matchless power of digestion. Once 

 shut up with food, it never ceases to eat and digest 

 until the whole store is devoured. Proof of this is 

 easily come by. Open the cell where it has retired 

 from the world at any hour and you find the insect 

 eating, and behind it, still attached to the creature, 

 is a continuous cord, rolled carelessly like a bundle 

 of cables. Without going into particulars, we can 

 guess what this cord represents. Mouthful by 

 mouthful the great ball passes into the digestive 

 organs, yielding up its nutritive principle, and re- 

 appearing spun into a rope. Now this unbroken cord, 

 often without a joint and always hanging from the 

 orifice, proves, with absolute certainty, how continuous 

 is the action of digestion. By the time that the food is 

 nearly eaten, the rope is astonishingly long. Where 

 else could one find another stomach, that, to avoid 

 any loss in the debit and credit ledger of life, can feast 

 for a week or a fortnight on such miserable cheer ? 

 .When the whole mass has been digested, the hermit 

 returns to daylight, seeks, finds, and shapes a new 

 ball, and begins all over again. This royal life lasts 

 one or two months, from June to July ; then, with 

 the coming of the fierce heat, which the grasshoppers 

 love, the Scarabaei take up summer quarters and 

 bury themselves in the cool earth. With the first 

 rains they reappear, less numerous and less active 

 than in spring, but apparently taken up by the all- 

 important task of continuing their race. 



