More Beetles 



containing cotton-wool, they are clad in a 

 fluffy fleece ; in that containing bits of paper, 

 they are covered with white tiles, as though 

 they had been snowed upon; in those contain- 

 ing radish or parsley-seed they have the look 

 of nutmegs embellished with an accurate 

 milling. This time the work is really beau- 

 tiful. When human artifice assists the tal- 

 ent of the stercoral artist, the result is a 

 pretty toy. 



The outer wrapper of paper scales, seeds 

 or tufts of cotton-wool adheres fairly well. 

 Beneath it is the real wall, consisting entirely 

 of brown cement. The regularity of the 

 shell gives us at first the idea of an inten- 

 tional arrangement. The same idea occurs to 

 us if we consider the cocoon of the Golden 

 Cetonia, which is often prettily adorned with 

 a rubble of droppings. It looks as though 

 the grub collected from all around such 

 building-stones as suit its purpose and en- 

 crusted them piecemeal in the mortar to 

 give greater strength to the work. 



But this is not so at all. There is no 

 mosaic-work. With its round rump the larva 

 presses back the shifting material on every 

 side; it adjusts it, levels it by simple pressure 

 and then fixes it, at one point after another, 

 30 



