The Sacred Beetle and Others 



out leaving even an excrescence, this tem- 

 porary horn at a spot destined in the end 

 to be unmailed, gives rise to a few reflections. 

 The Dung-beetles, those placid creatures, 

 generally favour a warlike harness; they 

 love outlandish weapons, halberds, spears, 

 grappling-irons, scimitars. Let us hurriedly 

 recall the horn of the Spanish Copris. No 

 Rhinoceros in the Indian jungles boasts one 

 to compare with it upon his nose. Broad at 

 the base, pointed at the tip, curved like a 

 bow, when the head is lifted the horn bends 

 back till it touches the keel of the obhquely 

 truncated corselet. It might be an harpoon 

 intended for ripping up some monster. Re- 

 member also the Minotaur,^ who looks as 

 though he were going to spit his foe with his 

 sheaf of three couched lances, and the Lunary 

 Copris, horned on the forehead, armed with 

 a pike on each shoulder and wearing a corse- 

 let notched with little crescents that remind 

 us of the short curved knife of the pork- 

 butcher. 



The OnthophagI have a most varied 

 arsenal. One, O. taurus, wears the Bull's 

 crescent-shaped horns; a second, O. vacca, 

 prefers a wide, short blade, with its point 



^Minotaurus typhceus. Cf. The Life and Love of the 

 Insect: chap. x. — Translator's Note. 

 264 



