344 
NATURAL HISTORY. 
long only upon roots, and imbibing only the moisture of 
the earth, to visit the mildness of the summer air, to choose 
the sweetest vegetables for their banquet, and to drink the 
dew of the evening. 
Wherever an attentive observer then walks abroad, lie 
will see them bursting up before him in his pathway, like 
ghosts on a theatre. He will see every part of the earth, 
that had its surface beaten into hardness, perforated by their 
egression. When the season is favourable for them, they are 
seen by thousands, buzzing along, hitting against every ob- 
ject that intercepts their flight. The mid-day sun, however, 
seems too powerful for their constitutions ; they then lurk 
under the leaves and branches of some shady tree ; but the 
willow seems particularly their most favourite food ; there 
they lurk in clusters, and seldom quit the tree till they have 
devoured all its verdure. 
Their duration, however, is but short, as they never 
survive the season. 
Of all the beetle kind, this is the most numerous, and 
therefore deserves the chief attention of history. Like them, 
all other beetles are bred from the egg, which is deposited 
in the ground, or sometimes, though seldom, in the barks 
of frees ; they change into a worm ; they subsist in that 
state by living upon the roots of vegetables, or the succulent 
parts of the bark around them. 
It would be endless to give a description of all, and yet 
it would be an unpardonable omission not to mention the 
particularities of some beetles, which are singular either 
from their size, their manners, or their formation. 
That beetle which the Americans call the tumble-dung , 
particularly demands our attention ; it is all over of a dusky 
black, rounder than those animals are generally found to be, 
and so strong, though not much larger than the common 
black beetle, that if one of them be put under a brass candle- 
stick, it will cause it to move backwards and forwards, as if it 
were by an invisible hand, to the admiration of those who are 
not accustomed to the sight ; but this strength is given it for 
much more useful purposes than those of exciting human cu- 
riosity, for there is no creature more laborious, either in seek- 
ing subsistence, or in providing a proper retreat for its young. 
They are endowen with sagacity to discover subsistence by 
their excellent smelling, which directs them in flights to excre- 
ments 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 the 
