456 THE INSECT WORLD. 
generally inhabits sandy countries, and has its body nearly always 
covered with earth or dust; it lives on vegetable substances, or on 
animal matter in a state of decomposition. The habits of the genus 
Copris resemble those of Geotrupes ; they live in excrement. The 
form of their clypeus, broad, rounded, without teeth, and advancing 
over the mouth, suffices to distinguish the kindred species. In 
the environs of Paris and in England the Copris lunaris is found. 
The larvee of these insects form a cocoon composed of earth and 
dung, before transforming themselves into pups: this cocoon is 
more or less round, and acquires a great hardness. 
The species of the genus Ateuchus collect portions of excre- 
ment, which they make up into balls, and roll till they are 
as perfectly rounded as pills, and in which they lay their eggs. 
This habit has gained for these insects the name of pill-makers. 
Their hind legs seem to be particularly adapted for this operation, 
for they are very long and somewhat distant from the other legs, 
which gives to the Afeuchi a strange appearance, and makes it 
hard work for them to walk. They walk backwards and often fall 
head over heels. They are generally seen on declivities exposed 
to the greatest heat of the sun, assembled together to the number 
of four or five, occupied in rolling the same ball; so that it is 
impossible to know which is the real proprietor of this rolling 
object. They seem not to know themselves; for they roll indiffer- 
ently the first ball which they meet with, or near which they are 
placed. 
The Ateuchi are large flat insects, with a broad toothed clypeus ; 
they all belong to the Ancient Continent. The type of the genus 
is the Ateuchus sacer (Fig. 441), the Sacred Scarabzeus of the 
Egyptians. This insect is black, and attains toa length of a little 
less than an inch. It is to be found commonly enough in the south 
of France, in the whole of southern Europe, Barbary, and Egypt. 
The paintings and amulets of the ancient Kgyptians very often 
represent it, and sometimes give it a gigantic size. It is, doubt- 
less, then this species which was an object of veneration with the 
Egyptians. 
There exists another species which is always represented as of 
a magnificent golden green, and to which Herodotus also attributes 
this colour. As it was not to be found in Egypt, it was thought 
