CHAP. I. 



INSTINCTS OP BEETLES. 



31 



there is another family of beetles, to which belongs 

 the ScarabfBus Sacer of 

 Egypt (fig. 8.), which 

 forms round pellets of 

 dung, in the middle of 

 which the female depo- 

 sits her . eggs ; each of 

 these is afterwards placed 

 two and three feet deep in 

 the earth, where the grubs remain in safety until spring, 

 when they dig their way to the surface. The parent 

 insects unite their labours in rolling the balls, often to a 

 considerable distance; and yet, arduous as is the task, 

 they persevere till they have found a convenient spot 

 for burying them. 



(36.) The grave beetles (Sylphidce, fig. 9.) are so 

 called from their habit of interring the bodies of small 

 animals, in which they afterwards deposit their eggs. 

 Astonishing but well-authenticated accounts have been 

 given of the sagacious industry with which these little 

 creatures accomplish labours, which must be, to them, 

 enormous. Among other experiments, a glass cucurbit 

 was half filled with earth, on which 

 were placed four beetles and their 

 young, and then, after being co- 

 vered, it was lodged on the open 

 ground : at the end of fifty days, 

 the bodies of four frogs, three birds, 

 two grasshoppers, one mole, the 

 entrails of a fish, and part af the 

 lungs of an ox, were buried by 

 these indefatigable little creatures.* 

 (37.) The whole economy of bees, wasps, and ants, 

 in their well-established and admirably conducted com- 

 munities, presents one continued series of the most 

 extraordinary instincts ; but, as these are elsewhere de- 

 scribed, we shall only advert to one part of the history 

 of the last-mentioned little creatures, by which we learn 



* Bingley's Animal Biography, voL iii. p. 127. 



