My suspicions are not unfounded. Robbery, the execrable right of the strongest, is not the exclusive prerogative of the human brute: animals also practise it; and the Sacred Beetle is a notorious offender. As the work is done in the open, every one knows or is able to find out what his companions are doing. They are mutually envious of each other’s pills; and scuffles take place between proprietors wishing to leave the yard and plunderers who find it more convenient to rob their fellows than to set to work and knead loaves for themselves. On guard on the top of his treasure, the owner of a ball will face his assailant, who is trying to climb up, and push him into space with a stroke from his stout fore-arms. The thief is flung on his back and flounders about for a moment, but he is soon up and back again. The struggle is renewed. Right does not always win, in which case the robber makes off with his prize and the victim returns to the heap to make himself another pill. It is not unusual for a third thief to appear upon the scene during the fight and settle matters between the litigants by carrying off the property at issue. I am inclined to think that it was affrays of this sort that gave rise to the childish story of the Sacred Beetles who were called to the rescue and came to lend a hand to their brothers in distress. Brazen footpads were taken for kindly helpers. [[50]]

The Sacred Beetle then is an inveterate thief; he shares the tastes of the Bedouin Arab, his fellow-countryman in Africa; he too is addicted to raiding. In his case, hunger and dearth, both evil counsellors, cannot be invoked as an explanation of this moral obliquity. Provisions are plentiful in my cages; certainly, in their days of liberty, my captives never lived in the midst of such abundance; and yet affrays are of frequent occurrence. They fight hotly-contested battles for the loaves, just as though bread were lacking. Poverty has nothing to do with it, for very often the thief abandons his booty after rolling it for a few seconds. They steal for the pleasure of stealing. As La Fontaine[1] well says, there is

… double profit à faire:

Son bien premièrement; et puis le mal d’autrui.[2]

In view of this propensity for thieving, what is the best thing that a Scarab can do when he has conscientiously made his ball? Obviously, to shun his fellows, to leave the premises and get away to a distant spot where he can consume his provisions in the depths of some hiding-place. This is what he does; and he loses no time in doing it: he knows his kinsmen too well.

Here we see the necessity for an easy method of conveyance, so that sufficient provisions may be carted in a single journey and as swiftly as possible. The Sacred Beetle likes working in the bright light, in the sunshine. His profits therefore, made in full view of everybody, are no secret to any of the workers who have hurried to the [[51]]same heap. Thus is envy kindled; thus it becomes imperative to retire to a distance, in order to avoid being robbed. This speedy retreat demands a convenient means of transport; and that is obtained by the spherical form given to the materials collected.

Here is the conclusion, unexpected but very logical and I would even say obvious: the Sacred Beetle shapes his provisions into a ball because he is an ardent lover of the sun. The various Dung-beetles who work in broad daylight, the Gymnopleuri and Sisyphi of my district, conform to the same mechanical principle: they all know the advantages of a sphere, the best rolling-apparatus; they all practise the art of pill-making. The other Dung-beetles, who work in the dark, do nothing of the kind: their accumulations of food are shapeless.

Life in the vivarium supplies us with some other facts which are not undeserving of the commentator’s attention. We have said that, when fresh provisions are supplied, the Sacred Beetles who are roaming about come running up eagerly to the smoking fare. The rich effluvia also speedily attract those who are slumbering in their burrows. Little mounds of sand pop up here and there, cracking as though for an eruption, and we see new guests emerge, wiping the dust from their eyes with the flat of their feet. Neither their dozing in that underground room nor the thick roof of their dwelling has succeeded in foiling their keenness of scent: those who have had to unearth themselves reach the lump almost as quickly as the others.

These details remind us of certain facts noted, not without surprise, by a host of observers on the sunny beaches at Cette, Palavas, the Golfe Juan and the North African coast, down to the lonely Sahara. Here the [[52]]Sacred Beetle and his kinsmen—the Half-spotted Scarab, the Pock-marked Scarab and others—swarm, becoming more vigorous and more active in proportion as the climate grows hotter. They abound; and yet very often not one shows himself; the entomologist’s practised eye fails to discover a single specimen.

But now see things change. Seized with an urgent physiological need, you leave your party unobtrusively and retire behind the bushes. You have hardly stood up, hardly begun to adjust your dress, when—whoosh!—here comes one, here come three, here come ten, appearing suddenly you know not whence, and swoop upon the provender. Have they hastened from afar, these bustling scavengers? Certainly not. Had they been apprised at a great distance by their sense of smell, which is not in itself impossible, they would not have had time to reach the quite recent windfall so promptly. It follows, therefore, that they were close by, within a radius of ten or twenty yards, hidden underground and dozing. A scent that is ever awake, even in the lethargy of sleep, told them, down in their burrows, of the happy event; and, splitting their ceilings, they hurry up forthwith. In less time than the incident takes to relate, a swarming population enlivens what was but now a desert.