A DUNG-BEETLE OF THE PAMPAS 105 



but I was wrong. It contains something much better 

 than that for our instruction. 



I carefully rip up the gourd with the point of the knife. 

 Under a homogeneous outer wall, the thickness of which 

 reaches as much as two centimetres 1 in the largest of my 

 three specimens, is encased a spherical kernel, which 

 fills the cavity exactly, but without sticking to the wall 

 at any part. The trifle of free scope allowed to this 

 kernel accounts for the rattling which I heard when 

 shaking the piece. 



The kernel does not differ from the wrapper in the colour 

 and general appearance of its bulk. But let us break it 

 and examine the shreds. I recognize tiny fragments of 

 gold, flocks of down, threads of wool, scraps of meat, the 

 whole drowned in an earthy paste resembling chocolate. 



Placed on a glowing coal, this paste, shredded under 

 the lens and deprived of its particles of dead bodies, 

 becomes much darker, is covered with shiny bubbles and 

 sends forth puffs of that acrid smoke in which we easily 

 recognize burnt animal matter. The whole mass of the 

 kernel, therefore, is strongly impregnated with sanies. 



Treated in the same manner, the wrapper also turns 

 dark, but not to the same extent ; it hardly smokes ; it 

 is not covered with jet-black bubbles ; lastly, it does not 

 anywhere contain shreds of carcasses similar to those in 

 the central nut. In both cases, the residuum of the 

 calcination is a fine, reddish clay. 



This brief analysis tells us all about Phanaeus Milo's 

 table. The fare served to the grub is a sort of vol-au- 

 vent. The sausage-meat consists of a mince of all that the 

 two scalpels of the shield and the toothed knives of the 

 fore-legs have been able to cut away from the carcass : 



1 '78 inch. Translator's Note. 



14 



