ven when she is working the produce of the
Sheep far from the pastures of the Argentine.

Can this be because the jewel of the pampas dispenses with the
father's collaboration? I dare not follow up the argument, for the
Spanish Copris would give me the lie, by showing me the mother
occupied alone in settling the family and nevertheless stocking her
one pit with a number of pellets. Each has her share of customs the
secret of which escapes us.

The two next, _Megathopa bicolor_ and _M. intermedia_, have certain
points of resemblance with the Sacred Beetle, for whose ebon hue they
substitute a blue black. The first besides brightens his corselet with
magnificent copper reflections. With their long legs, their forehead
with its radiating denticulations and their flattened wing-cases, they
are fairly successful smaller editions of the famous pill-roller.

They also share her talent. The work of both is once again a sort of
pear, but constructed in a more ingenious fashion, with an almost
conical neck and without any elegant curves. From the point of view of
beauty, it falls short of the Sacred Beetle's work. Considering the
tools, which have ample free play and are well adapted for clasping, I
expected something better from the two modellers. No matter: the work
of the Megathopae conforms with the fundamental art of the other
pill-rollers.

A fourth, _Bolbites onitoides_, compensates us for repetitions which,
it is true, widen the scope of the problem but teach us nothing new.
She is a handsome Beetle with a metallic costume, green or copper-red
according as the light happens to fall. Her four-cornered shape and
her long, toothed fore-legs make her resemble our Onites.[14]

[Footnote 14: Cf. _The Sacred Beetle and Others_: chap.
xvi.--_Translator's Note_.]

In her, the Dung-beetles' guild reveals itself under a very unexpected
aspect. We know insects that knead soft loaves; and here are some
which, to keep their bread fresh, discover ceramics and become
potters, working clay in which they pack the food of the larvae.
Before my housekeeper, before any of us, they knew how, with the aid
of a round jar, to keep the provisions from drying during the summer
heats. The work of the Bolbites is an ovoid, hardly differing in shape
from that of the Copres; but this is where the ingenuity of the
American insect shines forth. The inner mass, the usual dung-cake
furnished by the Cow or the Sheep, is covered with a perfectly
homo