The Sacred Beetle in Captivity 



Bubas-beetles, who also belong to the 

 Dung-beetle family. Entomology has long 

 recorded this curious fact, without being 

 able to offer a satisfactory explanation. Is 

 the creature born maimed, does it come into 

 the world without fingers to its fore-limbs? 

 Or does it lose them by accident, once it is 

 given over to its toilsome labours? 



One could easily imagine this mutilation 

 to be the result of the insect's hard work. 

 Poking about, digging and raking and slicing 

 up, at one time in the gravelly soil, at 

 another in the stringy mass of manure, does 

 not constitute a task in which organs so 

 delicate as the tarsi can be employed with- 

 out risk. And here is an even more serious 

 matter: when the Beetle is roUing his ball 

 backwards, with his head down, it is with 

 the extremities of his fore-feet that he 

 presses against the ground. What might 

 not happen to the insect's feeble fingers, 

 slender as a bit of thread, as the result of 

 this continual rubbing against the rough soil? 

 They are useless, merely in the way; one 

 day or other they seem bound to disappear, 

 crushed, torn off, worn out in a thousand 

 ways. We know unfortunately that our 

 own workmen are all too frequently injured 

 in handling heavy tools and hfting great 

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