The Dung-Beetles of the Pampas 



demanding no pains, they all prefer the 

 sphere, lovingly fashioned and calling for 

 much manipulation, the globe which is the 

 preeminent form and best-adapted for the 

 preservation of energy, in the case of a sun 

 and of a Dung-beetle's cradle alike. 



When MacLeay ■ gave the Sacred Beetle 

 the name of Heliocantharus, the Black- 

 beetle of the Sun, what had he in mind? 

 The radiating denticulations of the forehead, 

 the insect's gambols in the bright sunlight? 

 Was he not thinking rather of the symbol 

 of Egypt, the Scarab who, on the pediment 

 of the temples, lifts towards the sky, by way 

 of a pill, a vermilion sphere, the image of 

 the sun? 



The comparison between the mighty 

 bodies of the universe and the insect's humble 

 pellet was not distasteful to the thinkers on 

 the banks of the Nile. For them supreme 

 splendour found its effigy in extreme ab- 

 jection. Were they very wrong? 



No, for the pill-roller's work propounds 



1 William Sharp MacLeay (1792-1865), author of 

 Hora Entomologica; or, Essays on Annulose Animals 

 (1819-1821), on which I quote the Dictionary of National 

 Biography: 



" He propounded the circular or quinary system, a forc- 

 edly artificial attempt at a natural system of classification, 

 which soon became a byword among naturalists." — 

 Translator's Note. 



271 



