INSECTA—ELEPHANT BEETLE. 827 
for its young. They are endowed with sagacity to discover subsistence by 
their excellent smelling, which directs them in flight to excrements just 
fallen from man or beast, on which they instantly drop, and fall unanimously 
to work in forming round balls or pellets thereof, in the middle of which 
they lay an egg. These pellets, in September, they convey three feet deep 
in tne earth, where they lie till the approach of spring; when the eggs are 
hatched, the nest bursts, and the insects find their way out of the earth. 
They assist each other, with indefatigable industry, in rolling these globular 
pellets to the place where they are to be buried. This they perform with 
the tail foremost, by raising up their hinder part, and shoving along the ball 
with their hind feet. They are always accompanied with other beetles of a 
larger size, and of a more elegant structure and color. The breast of this is 
covered with a shield of a crimson color, and shining like metal; the head 
is of the like color, mixed with green, and on the crown of the head stands 
a shining black horn, bended backwards. These are called the kings of 
the beetles; but for what reason is uncertain, since they partake of the 
same dirty drudgery with the rest. 
THE ELEPHANT BEETLE! 
Is the largest of this kind hitherto known, and is found in South America, 
particularly Guiana and Surinam, as well as about the river Oroonoko. It 
is of a black color, and the whole body is covered with a very hard shell, 
full as thick and as strong as that of asmall crab. Its length, from the 
hinder part of the eyes, is almost four inches, and from the same part to the 
end of the proboscis, or trunk, four inches and three quarters. The trans- 
verse diameter of the body is two inches anda quarter, and the breadth of 
each elytron, or case for the wings, is an inch andthree tenths. The anten- 
ne, or feelers, are quite horny ; for which reason the proboscis, or trunk, is 
moveable at its insertion into the head, and seems to supply the place of 
feelers. The horns are eight tenths of an inch long, and terminate in 
points. The proboscis is an inch anda quarter long, and turns upwards, 
making a crooked line, terminating in two horns, each of which is near a 
quarter of an inch long; but they are not perforated at the end like the 
proboscis of other insects. About four tenths of an inch above the head, or 
that side next the body, is a prominence, or small horn, which, if the rest 
of the trunk were away, would cause this part to resemble the horn of a 
rhinoceros. There is indeed a beetle so called; but then the horn or trunk 
has no fork at the end, though the lower horns resemble this. The feet are 
all forked at the end, but not like the lobster’s claws. 
1 Scarabeus Hercules, Lin. 
