II THE ENCLOSURE 37 



with all the inequalities of the soil ? They are 

 useless — merely in the way, and sooner or later they 

 are bound to disappear, crushed, torn off, worn out. 

 Our workmen, alas ! are too often maimed by hand- 

 ling heavy tools, and lifting great weights, and the 

 same may be the case with the Scarabaeus which 

 rolls a ball that to it is a huge load. In that case 

 the maimed arms would be a noble certificate of a 

 life of toil. 



But serious doubts at once suggest themselves. 

 If these mutilations be accidental, and the result of 

 laborious work, they should be the exception, not 

 the rule. Because a workman or several workmen 

 have had a hand crushed in machinery, it does not 

 follow that all others should be maimed. If the 

 Scarabaeus often, or even very often, loses the fore- 

 claws in its trade of ball-roller, there must be some 

 which, cleverer or more fortunate, have preserved 

 their tarsi. Let us then consult facts. I have 

 observed a very large number of the species of 

 Scarabaeus which inhabit France, the S. sacer, common 

 in Provence ; S. semipunctatus, which is seldom found 

 far from the sea, and frequents the sandy shores of 

 Cette, Palavas, and of the Gulf of Juan ; also 

 S. longicollis, which is much more widely spread 

 than the two others, and found at least as far up the 

 Rh6ne Valley as Lyons. Finally, I have observed 

 an African kind, S. cicatricosus, found in the environs 

 of Constantine, and the want of tarsi on the fore- 

 feet has proved invariable in all four species, at all 

 events as far as my observations go. Therefore the 

 Scarabaeus is maimed from birth, and it must be no 

 accident but a natural peculiarity. 



