stry of the Megachiles, for instance, consists of manufacturing
wallets with bits of leaves; that of the Cotton-bees of making bags of
wadding with the flock gathered from certain plants. Whether the
pieces be cut from the leaves of this shrub or that, or at need from
the petals of some flower; whether the cotton-wool be collected here
or there, as chance may direct the encounter, the industry undergoes
no essential changes.

In the same manner, nothing changes in the art of the Dung-beetle,
victualling himself with materials in this mine or that. Here in truth
we have immutable instinct, here we behold the rock which our
theorists are unable to shake.

And why should it change, this instinct, so logical in its workings?
Where could it find, even with chance assisting, a better plan? In
spite of an equipment which varies in the different genera, it
suggests to every modelling Dung-beetle the spherical shape, a
fundamental structure which is hardly affected when the egg is placed
in position.

From the outset, without the use of compasses, without any mechanical
rolling, without shifting the thing on its base, one and all obtain
the ball, the delicately executed compact body supremely favourable to
the grub's well-being. To the shapeless lump, demanding no pains, they
all prefer the sphere, lovingly fashioned and calling for much
manipulation, the globe which is the preeminent form and best-adapted
for the preservation of energy, in the case of a sun and of a
Dung-beetle's cradle alike.

When Macleay[25] gave the Sacred Beetle the name of Heliocantharus,
the Black-beetle of the Sun, what had he in mind? The radiating
denticulations of the forehead, the insect's gambols in the bright
sunlight? Was he not thinking rather of the symbol of Egypt, the
Scarab who, on the pediment of the temples, lifts towards the sky, by
way of a pill, a vermilion sphere, the image of the sun?

[Footnote 25: William Sharp Macleay (1792-1865), author of _Horae
Entomologicae_; or, _Essays on Annulose Animals_ (1819-1821), on which
I quote the _Dictionary of National Biography_:

"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