THE SACRED BEETLE 59 



family of the Scarab alike await within the ashes of the 

 soil — should a little rain fall, soon the fields will present 

 the appearance of a resurrection. 



The earth is soaked. This is the wet rag of my experi- 

 ment. At its touch, the shell recovers the softness of 

 its early days, the casket becomes yielding ; the insect 

 makes play with its legs, pushes with its back ; it is free. 

 It is, in fact, in the month of September, during the first 

 rains which herald the coming autumn, that the Scarab 

 leaves the native burrow and comes to enliven the 

 pastoral sward, even as the former generation enlivened 

 it in the spring. The clouds, hitherto so chary, have 

 come at last to set him free. 



Under conditions of exceptional coolness of the earth, 

 the bursting of the shell and the emerging of its occupant 

 can occur at an earlier period ; but, in ground scorched by 

 the fierce sun of summer, as is usually the case in these 

 parts, the Scarab, however eager he may be to see the 

 light, must needs wait for the first rains to soften his 

 stubborn shell. A downpour means to him a question 

 of life and death. Horapollo, that echo of the Egyptian 

 magi, saw true when he made water play its part in the 

 insect's birth. 



But let us drop the jargon of antiquity and its shreds 

 of truth ; let us not neglect the first acts of the Sacred 

 Beetle on leaving his shell ; let us be present at his 

 prentice steps in the open-air life. In August, I break 

 the casket in which I hear the helpless prisoner fretting. 

 The insect, the only one of its species, is placed in a 

 volery. Provisions are fresh and plentiful. This is the 

 moment, I say to myself, when we take refreshment 

 after so long an abstinence. Well, I am wrong : the 

 new recruit sets no store by the victuals, notwithstand- 



