THE DORR BEETLE. 217 



appear of a uniform size, and emerging in the spring 

 they are all apparently full grown, and during the sum- 

 mer none of smaller dimensions associate with the 

 family parties. This plain, tiny, gliding water-flea 

 seems a very unlikely creature to arrest our young at- 

 tentions ; but the boy with his angle has not often much 

 to engage his notice ; and the social, active parties of 

 this nimble swimmer, presenting themselves at these 

 periods of vacancy, become insensibly familiar to his 

 sight, and by many of us are not observed in after life 

 without recalling former hours, scenes of perhaps less 

 anxious days : for trifles like these, by reason of some 

 association, are often remembered, when things of 

 greater moment pass off, and leave no trace upon our 

 mind. 



July 29. We frequently notice in our evening walks 

 the murmuring passage, and are often stricken by the 

 heedless flight, of the great dorr beetle (scarabaeus ster- 

 corarius), clocks,* as the boys call them. But this 

 evening my attention was called to them in particular 

 by the constant passing of such a number as to consti- 

 tute something like a little stream; and I was led to 

 search into the object of their direct flight, as in general 

 it is irregular and seemingly inquisitive. I soon found 

 that they dropped on some recent nuisance : but what 

 powers of perception must these creatures possess, 

 drawn from all distances and directions by the very lit- 

 tle fetor, which in such a calm evening could be dif- 

 fused around ! and by what inconceivable means could 



* Multitudes of words are retained in our language derived from 

 very ancient dialects, and possibly the name " clock," as given to this 

 beetle, conveying no meaning to our present comprehensions, is % 

 corruption of some syllable in former use. Its subterranean resi- 

 dence might have been signified by the old word " cloax," a vault, 

 a creature from below. Or, burrowing in filth and ordure, as it does, 

 the epithet " clocca," the offspring of a common shore, or jakes, 

 would not have been insignificant of its origin and habits. Fancy, 

 too, playing with trifles, amuses itself in bandying about even its 

 more general appellative, dorr. In old times a " dorr" was a stupid, 

 blundering fellow; and "to dorr," was to<3in, or trouble with noise; 

 both meanings applicable to the heedless flight, and loud noise, made 

 in all the transits of this dung beetle. 



T 



