PROVISIONS AND DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 95 



extent on the form of their bodies that at first sight 

 they seem to belong to a different species. 



Animals who submit foods to special preparation in 

 order to facilitate transport. — Not content with col- 

 lecting materials as they are found in nature, certain 

 animals submit them to preparation with various 

 aims, either to render transport easier or that they 

 may not deteriorate when stored. Among those of 

 whom I have just spoken, some collect with the view 

 of utilising their stores in a more remote future than 

 others. The Ateucus sacer intends to consume the 

 provisions he prepares almost immediately. Yet he 

 acts in so careful a manner that I cannot pass him in 

 silence. This beetle is the sacred Scarabaeus so 

 venerated by the Egyptians, who have everywhere 

 reproduced his image in porphyry and granite. He 

 is a most singular insect The celebrated Fabre has 

 given a complete and very picturesque history of his 

 customs.^ I have myself had an opportunity of 

 seeing him at work. It was in Persia, in the plain 

 of Susiana, on a hot morning in March. We had 

 passed the night in the open air, proposing to con- 

 tinue our journey in the early morning, but our mules, 

 rendered rather lively by the fresh grass brought out 

 by the spring weather, had decided otherwise. They 

 had all decamped to take a ramble on their own 

 account. In order to pass away the hours taken up 

 by the mulateers in searching for the strayed animals, 

 the Scarabaeus would, I thought, furnish me with an 

 amusing and instructive spectacle. During the night 

 •the mules had not failed to leave here and there the 

 relics of their digestion. The aroma, borne on the 

 morning breeze, had struck the Scarabaeus on awak- 



^ J. H. Fabre, Souvenirs entomologiques, 1879. 



