52 THE LIFE AND LOVE OF THE INSECT 



has been renewed year by year, ever since Scarabs came 

 into the world, and which has certainly had time to 

 become fixed and to convert itself into a settled habit. 

 But they do nothing of the sort. Every Sacred Beetle 

 that breaks his shell, with not one exception, is endowed 

 with the four tarsi prescribed by rule. 



Well, theorists, what say you to that ? For the two 

 front legs, you offer a sort of an explanation ; and the 

 four others contradict you flatly. Have you not been 

 taking fancy for truth ? 



Then what is the cause of the original mutilation of 

 the Scarab ? I will confess plainly that I know nothing 

 at all about it. Nevertheless, those two maimed members 

 are very strange : so strange, in the endless order of 

 insects, that they have exposed the masters, the greatest 

 masters, to lamentable blunders. Let us listen first to 

 Latreille,^ the prince of descriptive entomologists. In his 

 account of the insects which ancient Egypt painted or 

 carved upon her monuments, ^ he quotes the writmgs of 

 Horapollo, an unique document which has been pre- 

 served for us in the papyri for the glorification of the 

 sacred insect : 



" One would feel tempted at first," he says, " to set 

 down as fiction what Horapollo says of the number of 

 that Scarab's fingers. According to him, there are thirty. 

 Nevertheless, this computation, judged by the way in 

 which he looks at the tarsus, is perfectly correct, for this 

 part consists of five joints ; and, if we take each of them 

 for a finger, the legs being six in number and each ending 



1 Pierre André Latreille (1762-1833), one of the founders of entomo- 

 logical science. — Translator's Note. 



2 Mémoires dit, Muséum d'histoire naturelle, vol. v., p. 249. — 

 Author's Note. 



