It is said that somewhere with this veneration there was included a symbolism. The living scarab is a tumble bug, the female makes a ball of dung much larger than herself and either with her shovel pointed nose, or else standing on her head with her hind legs on the ball, she either pushes or pulls the ball along until she finds some suitable place in which to dig a hole and bury this ball so that later she may consume it at her ease. It has been suggested that some Egyptian astronomer, watching the rolling ball, may have suggested an analogy with the movement of the heavenly bodies—with the traveling of the moon around the earth. For we must not forget that in those days the wonder of the heavens was fresh and new and the idea of world-balls of matter was a subject of intense intellectual excitement.
But there was yet another reason for the veneration of the Egyptians. The fact that these beetles suddenly disappeared into the ground and that later they appeared again was taken as proof of a future life.
It seems to me that we can take a lesson from the ancient Egyptians and see in things as insignificant as the beetles of manure the greatness of the world of change and really feel the wonder of it all.
It is a pity, but I have to admit that this American species is not a “tumble bug,” but contents herself with digging holes, filling them with manure and laying her eggs on it, instead of rolling a well-made ball to some special place as her Egyptian cousin does.
The mother scarab, unlike every other beetle, lives to see her children grow up, indeed she produces two families of little scarabs.
THE TWELVE-SPOTTED CUCUMBER BEETLE
(Diabrotica duodecim punctata, Oliv.)