The Sacred Beetle and Others 



thin covering of earth, are for most of the 

 time hard as stones. It is impossible for the 

 insect to wear away its casket and escape. 

 But let a shower come — that life-giving 

 baptism which the seed of the plant and the 

 family of the Beetle alike await within the 

 cinders of the earth — let a little rain fall; 

 and soon there will be a resurrection in the 

 fields. 



The earth becomes soaked. There you 

 have the wet rag of my experiment. At its 

 touch, the shell recovers the softness of its 

 early days, the casket becomes yielding; the 

 insect makes play with its legs and pushes 

 with its back; it is free. It is in fact in 

 September, during the first rains that 

 herald autumn, that the Sacred Beetle leaves 

 his native burrow and comes forth to enliven 

 the pastoral sward, even as the former 

 generation enlivened it in the spring. The 

 clouds, hitherto so ungenerous, at last set 

 him free. 



When the earth is exceptionally cool, the 

 bursting of the shell and the deliverance of 

 Its occupant can occur at an earlier period; 

 but in ground scorched by the pitiless summer 

 sun, as is usually the case in my district, the 

 Beetle, however eager he may be to see the 

 light, must needs wait for the first rain to 



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