120 THE LIFE AND LOVE OF THE INSECT 



is not lost : far from it. Nothing is lost in the world's 

 balance-sheet ; the stock-taking total is constant. The 

 little lump of dung buried by the insect will make the 

 nearest tuft of grass grow a luxuriant green. A sheep 

 passes, crops the bunch of grass : all the better for the 

 leg of mutton which man is waiting for. The Dung- 

 beetle's industry has procured us a savoury mouthful. 



In September and October, when the first autumn rains 

 soak the ground and allow the Sacred Beetle to split his 

 natal casket, Geotrupes Stercorarius and Geotrupes 

 Hypocrita found their family-establishments, somewhat 

 makeshift establishments, in spite of what we might have 

 expected from the name of those miners, so well-styled 

 Geotrupes, that is to say, " Earth-borers." When he has 

 to dig himself a retreat that shall shelter him against the 

 rigours of winter, the Geotrupe really deserves his name : 

 none can compare with him for the depth of the pit or 

 the perfection and rapidity of the work. In sandy 

 ground, easily excavated, I have dug up some that had 

 attained the depth of a metre. ^ Others carried their 

 digging further still, tiring both my patience and my 

 implements. There you have the skilled well-sinker, the 

 mcomparable Earth-borer. When the cold sets in, he 

 can go down to some layer where frost has lost its 

 terrors. 



The lodging of the family is another matter. The 

 propitious season is a short one ; time would fail, if each 

 individual grub had to be endowed with one of those 

 manor-houses. That the insect should devote the leisure 

 which the approach of winter gives it to digging a hole 

 of unhmited depth is a capital thmg : it makes the 

 retreat doubly safe ; and activity, not yet quite sus- 



* Over 89 inches. — Translator's Note. 



