THE SCARAB^EUS. 495 



man is obliged to utilise as fuel the droppings of the norses, 

 cows, and camels ; but the Scarabaeus goes further, collecting 

 all that man does not need, and burying it in the earth. 



The instinct of the female Scarabaeus urges it to gather 

 together the rejecta, to form them into balls, placing an egg 

 in the middle of each ball, and to bury them in the ground. 

 Thus a double object is attained, the offensive substances being 

 removed from the surface of the ground, where they do harm, 

 and being transferred below the surface, where they do good. 



Even the curious instinct of the dog, which leads it to bury 

 bones, &c, which it cannot consume, and which it often 

 forgets, if well fed, leaves them to be consumed by the all- 

 absorbing earth. 



It is evident that, in the end, the earth must receive back again 

 that which has been taken from it. If, for example, we follow 

 the present most wasteful plan of drainage, and fling into 



SCARAB-ffiUS-BEETLES- MEN MANURING GROUND. 



rivers everything which ought to be utilised on land, it only 

 gets into the sea in the end, and in the course of years is 

 decomposed, and returns to the earth in the form of gases. 

 Meanwhile, however, we have robbed the locality, deprived it 

 of the nourishment which it required, and forced ourselves to 

 supply it elsewhere at a costly rate. 



So runs the cycle of creation. Sooner or later, Nature 

 will have her way, and the more we help her, the better it 

 will be for us. 



Of course I do not mean to condemn Drainage, which is 

 an absolute necessity in agriculture, and a matter of life and 

 death in households. But, when rightly conducted, it only 

 signifies that water is removed from a spot which is overstocked 



