Author's Preface 



We must pass from the scented blossoms of 

 our flower-beds to the Mule-dung of our 

 high-roads to find a second instance of de- 

 voted mothers and lofty instincts. Nature 

 abounds in these antitheses. What are our 

 ugliness or beauty, our cleanliness or dirt to 

 her? Out of filth, she creates the flower; 

 from a little manure, she extracts the thrice- 

 blessed grain of wheat. 



Notwithstanding their disgusting occupa- 

 tion, the Dung-beetles are of a very respect- 

 able standing. Their size, which is generally 

 imposing; their severe and immaculately 

 glossy attire ; their portly bodies, thickset and 

 compact; the quaint ornamentation of brow 

 or thorax, all combined makes them cut an 

 excellent figure in the collector's boxes, 

 especially when to our home species, oftenest 

 of an ebon black, we add a few tropical 

 varieties a-glitter with gleams of gold and 

 flashes of burnished copper. 



They are the sedulous attendants of our 

 herds, for which reason several of them are 

 faintly redolent of benzoic acid, the aromatic 

 of the Sheepfolds. Their pastoral habits 

 have impressed the nomenclators, too often, 

 alas, careless of euphony, who this time have 

 changed their tune and headed their descrip- 

 tions with such names as Meliboeus, Tityrus, 



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