he difficulty was
generally overcome.

I kept a close watch to see if the beetle would be led by instinct to
form its round pellets of mud as is its custom on the banks of the Nile,
and having placed its egg in the centre, it begins to roll it from the
margin of the river until it is above high-water mark. There it digs a
hole and buries the pellet, leaving the sun to hatch the eggs in due
time. Travellers who have watched the process describe the untiring way
in which both the male and female beetle roll these pellets, often
falling down with their burden into holes and ridges in the rough
ground; but then their comrades will give them help, and, picking up the
ball, they patiently labour on. Walking backwards, having the pellet
between their broad hind legs, they push it up and up until it is
placed in safety. The persevering energy of this insect led the
Egyptians to adopt it as an emblem of the labours of their great deity,
Osiris, or the sun; they also traced a resemblance in the spiny
projections on its head to the rays of the sun.

Great was my delight to find at length that Cheops--even in
captivity--was true to his native instincts, that he had formed a pellet
about the size of a marble and was gravely rolling it with his hind legs
backwards and forwards in his box. Poor captive! he was evidently
puzzled what to do with the precious thing. He had no Nile bank to
surmount, and the sun was hardly warm enough to encourage any hope for
his future family; but he did the only thing that was possible--he set
to work to scoop out a hole of sufficient size, then rolled the pellet
in and covered it over with loose earth. Three such pellets were made at
intervals of a few days; one of them I unearthed and kept as a curio.
The beetle never seemed to miss it, and having done his duty under
difficult circumstances, his mind seemed to be at rest.

I often placed Cheops in my hand to show him to visitors, and there he
would lie feigning to be dead until he was gently stroked over the
elytra, when he would stretch out his antennae, then his legs by slow
degrees appeared (for he tucked them close to his body out of sight when
frightened), and at last he would begin to walk in a jerky manner, as if
moved by machinery, often stopping to look and listen to be sure that it
was safe to move, and even if busily at work in the earth, if he saw any
one coming near he would stop, draw in his antennae and limbs and remain
motionless.