“The larva is therefore the insect under the form it presents on emerging from the egg. Its continuance in this form is longer than in that of the finally perfected creature. The larva of the stag-beetle remains a larva for three or four years, whereas the beetle itself lives but a couple of months. The sole occupation of this grub is eating, continual eating, that it may grow fat and store up supplies enough to carry it through its subsequent transformations. “Having attained sufficient size, the larva constructs a retreat for itself, hollows out a little cell, and spins a cocoon where in perfect quiet the delicate task of transformation will be undertaken. It strips off its skin and becomes an inert, formative body known as a nymph. “Finally, the nymph, having arrived at the right degree of maturity, casts off its wrappings and reveals itself as transformed into a perfect insect. It lays its eggs, and the same succession of changes is again repeated. The egg, the larva, the nymph, the perfect insect—there you have the four stages of the insect’s life. These changes of form are called metamorphoses.” CHAPTER XLVI SHEATH-WINGED INSECTS “I show you here the scarab, clothed all in black. Passionate lover of the sun, it rarely strays beyond the regions bordering on the Mediterranean. It belongs to the band of scavengers, a group of handsome insects which, feeding on ordure, are charged with the sanitation of the greensward defiled by grazing herds. “Its favorite dish is the dung of horses and mules. With the toothed edges of its head it rummages in the dung; with its wide, serrate fore legs it cuts up this material, kneads it, and molds it into a ball about as large as an apricot. This done, the next thing is to seek out some quiet retreat far from the hubbub of its fellows who have been drawn to the spot for as much as a kilometer round about by the odor; and of course the booty must be trundled away to this secure retreat, there to be eaten at ease, without fear of predatory assaults from the envious. “This task is performed in couples. One hooks on to the globule in front and pulls with head up; the other pushes from behind with head down. Heave ho! It starts, it rolls, under the combined efforts of the two partners. On the down grade the load again and again runs away with the team, which falls headlong, gets up again, and catches hold of the cargo once more with an ardor that nothing can discourage. Under the rays of a scorching sun this store of provision is thus dragged a long distance over the sand, across the greensward, and over ruts. Perhaps the scarabs find their bread at first not sufficiently compact, and seek to give it consistency by rolling it on the ground. Every one according to his fancy.