"He propounded the circular or quinary system, a forcedly artificial attempt at a natural system of classification, which soon became a byword among naturalists."—Translator's Note.
The comparison between the mighty bodies of the universe and the insect's humble pellet was not distasteful to the thinkers on the banks of the Nile. For them supreme splendour found its effigy in extreme abjection. Were they very wrong?
No, for the pill-roller's work propounds a grave problem to whoso is capable of reflection. It compels us to accept this alternative: either to credit the Dung-beetle's flat head with the signal honour of having of itself solved the geometrical problem of preserved food, or else to fall back upon a harmony ruling all things under the eye of an Intelligence Which, knowing everything, has provided for everything.
CHAPTER X
INSECT COLOURING
Phanæus splendidulus, the glittering, the resplendent: this is the epithet selected by the official nomenclators to describe the handsomest Dung-beetle of the pampas. The name is not at all exaggerated. Combining the fire of gems with metallic lustre, the insect, according to the incidence of the light, emits the green reflections of the emerald or the gleam of ruddy copper. The muck-raker would do honour to the jeweller's show-cases.
For the rest, our own Dung-beetles, though usually modest in their attire, also have a leaning toward luxurious ornament. One Onthophagus decorates his corselet with Florentine bronze; another wears garnets on his wing-cases. Black above, the Mimic Geotrupes is the colour of copper pyrites below; also black in all parts exposed to the light of day, the Stercoraceous Geotrupes displays a ventral surface of a glorious amethyst violet.
Many other series, of greatly varied habits, Carabi,1 Cetoniæ, Buprestes, Chrysomelæ,2 rival and even surpass the magnificent Dung-beetles in the matter of jewellery. At times we encounter splendours which the imagination of a lapidary would not venture to depict. The Azure Hoplia,3 the inmate of the osier-beds and elders by the banks of the mountain streams, is a wonderful blue, tenderer and softer to the eye than the azure of the heavens. You could not find an ornament to match it save on the throats of certain Humming-birds and the wings of a few Butterflies in equatorial climes.