The Sacred Beetle and Others 



feasts for a week or a fortnight, without 

 stopping, on such distasteful fare? 



When the whole ball has passed through 

 the machine, the hermit comes back to the 

 daylight, tries his luck afresh, finds another 

 patch of dung, fashions a new ball and starts 

 eating again. This life of pleasure lasts for 

 a month or two, from May to June; then, 

 with the coming, of the fierce heat beloved 

 of the Cicadae,^ the Sacred Beetles take up 

 their summer quarters and bury themselves in 

 the cool earth. They reappear with the first 

 autumn rains, less numerous and less active 

 than in spring, but now seemingly absorbed in 

 the most important work of all, the future of 

 the species. 



1 Cf. The Life of the Grasshopper, by J. Henri Fabre, 

 translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chaps, i. to 

 V. — Translator's Note. 



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