THE SACRED BEETLE 



47 



occupies the upper surface. An enormous hump and a 

 trowel : that gives you the animal in two words. 



We must not finish the history of the grub without 

 saying a few words on its internal structure. Anatomy 

 will show us the works wherein the cement employed in 

 so original a manner is manufactured. The stomach or 

 chylific ventricle is a long, 

 thick cylinder, starting from 

 the creature's neck after a 

 very short gullet. It measures 

 about three times the length 

 of the animal. In its last 

 quarter, it carries a volumi- 

 nous lateral pouch distended 

 by the food. This is a sub- 

 sidiary stomach in which the 

 supplies are stored so as to 

 yield their nutritive principles 

 more thoroughly. The chylific 

 ventricle is much too long to 

 lie straight in the grub's 

 bowels and bends back upon 

 itself, in front of its appendix, 

 in the form of a large loop 

 occupying the dorsal surface. 

 It is to contain this loop 

 and the lateral pouch that 

 the back is swollen into a protuberance. The grub's 

 wallet is, therefore, a second paunch, an annexe, as it 

 were, of the stomach, which is itself incapable of holding 

 the voluminous digestive apparatus. Four very fine, very 

 long tubulures, irregularly entwined, four Malpighian 

 vessels mark the limits of the chylific ventricle. 



Fic. 



4. — Digestive apparatus of 

 the Sacred Beetle. 



