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

_Phanaeus 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] Cetoniae,
Buprestes, Chrysomelae,[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.

[Footnote 1: Cf. Chapter XIV. of the present volume.--_Translator's
Note_.]

[Footnote 2: Golden Apple-beetles.--_Translator's Note_.]

[Footnote 3: A genus of Cockchafer. Cf. _The Life of the Fly_: chap.
vii.--_Translator's Note_.]

To adorn itself like this, in what Golconda does the insect gather its
gems? In what diggings does it find its gold nuggets? What a pretty
problem is that of a Buprestis' wing-case! Here the chemistry of
colours ought to r