The Sacred Beetle and Others 



smaller ones, are a numberless multitude 

 when the others are few and far between. 

 I remember Onthophagi and Aphodii swarm- 

 ing by the thousand under one shelter. You 

 could have shovelled them up If you 

 wished. 



To this day I am still astonished when 

 I see these crowds again; as of old, the 

 abundance of the Dung-beetle family forms 

 a striking contrast with the comparative 

 scarcity of the others. If it occurred to me 

 to go a-hunting once more and renew the 

 quest to which I owe moments of such sheer 

 delight, I should be certain of filling my 

 flasks with Scarabaei, Copres, Geotrupes, 

 Onthophagi and other members of the same 

 corporation before achieving any measure of 

 success with the rest of the series. By the 

 time that May comes, the distiller of ordure 

 is there in numbers; and in July and August, 

 those months of blazing heat which see the 

 suspension of labour in the fields, the dealer 

 in unsavoury matter is still at work while the 

 others have taken to earth and are lying 

 in motionless torpor. He and his contem- 

 porary, the Cicada,^ represent almost by 



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

 translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chaps. 

 i. to V. — Translator's Note. 



274 



