The Sacred Beetle and Others 



that it would one day fall to my share to 

 sing your praises! I have not seen you 

 since. Welcome to my vivarium! And 

 now tell us something about yourself. 



You are a sturdy little chap, short-legged 

 and packed into a solid rectangle, a sign of 

 strength. On your head you wear two 

 abbreviated horns, curved like a Steer's; and 

 you prolong your corselet into a blunt fore- 

 head adorned with two pretty dimples, one 

 on the right and one on the left. Your 

 general appearance and your male finery 

 make you a near neighbour of the coprinary 

 group. The entomologists, in fact, class you 

 immediately after the Copres and a long way 

 from the Geotrupes. Does your trade tally 

 with the place which the systematists allot to 

 you? What can you do? 



In common with others, I admire the 

 classifier who, studying the mouth, the legs 

 and the antennas in the dead insect, is some- 

 times happy in his grouping and able, for 

 instance, to include in the same family the 

 Scarab and the Sisyphus, who differ so 

 greatly in appearance and so little in habits. 

 Yet this method, which ignores the higher 

 manifestations of life in order to pore over 

 the smallest details of the corpse, too often 

 misleads us as to the insect's real talent, 

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