THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 



153 



mal and bears off a small mass, in the centre of which this 

 egg is carefully placed. Afterwards it forms a regular 

 spherical ball with it, the bulk of which exceeds that of its 

 own body. When it is finished the insect takes it with its 

 two hind feet, which are long, crooked, and suited to this 

 work, and rolls it about in every direction, pushing it back- 

 wards. By dint of being worked along the sand and fine 



V\ 



I I 



80. Cartouches from the Temples of Philae, representing Sacred Scarabseus, Sacred Ibis, etc. 



earth, this ball of excrement, soft enough at first, becomes 

 more and more hard and smooth on the surface. The dung- 

 beetle pursues its work with an unheard-of perseverance ; 

 nothing stops it, nothing turns it back ; it is a blind instinct 

 that guides it. If the place it is traversing be a hillock or 

 a sloping ascent, it pushes its ball with all its strength. But 

 very often it tumbles, when the ball escapes from its legs 

 and rolls away. The insect then seeks it anxiously, and if 

 some neighbor, without anything to do, has taken posses- 

 sion of it, or if it be lost in the high grass so that it cannot 

 be found again, the beetle forms a new one, and lays an- 

 other egg. 



When the ball is quite finished, well rounded, large, and 

 hardened, the beetle, which has dug a hole for this purpose, 



