One might easily suppose such mutilation a consequence of the insect’s hard work. To grope, to excavate, to rake, to divide now among the gravel in the soil, now in the fibrous mass of manure, is not a work in which organs so delicate as the tarsi can be used without danger. Yet graver is it that when the insect is rolling its ball backward, head downward, it is with the end of the forefeet that it grips the ground. What becomes of the weak feet, no thicker than a thread, in this perpetual contact with all the inequalities of the soil? They are useless—merely in the way, and sooner or later they are bound to disappear, crushed, torn off, worn out. Our workmen, alas! are too often maimed by handling heavy tools, and lifting great weights, and the same may be the case with the Scarabæus which rolls a ball that to it is a huge load. In that case the maimed arms would be a noble certificate of a life of toil. But serious doubts at once suggest themselves. If these mutilations be accidental, and the result of laborious work, they should be the exception, not the rule. Because a workman or several workmen have had a hand crushed in machinery, it does not follow that all others should be maimed. If the Scarabæus often, or even very often, loses the fore-claws in its trade of ball-roller, there must be some which, cleverer or more fortunate, have preserved their tarsi. Let us then consult facts. I have observed a very large number of the species of Scarabæus which inhabit France, the S. sacer, common in Provence; S. semipunctatus, which is seldom found far from the sea, and frequents the sandy shores of Cette, Palavas, and of the Gulf of Juan; also S. longicollis, which is much more widely spread than the two others, and found at least as far up the Rhône Valley as Lyons. Finally, I have observed an African kind, S. cicatricosus, found in the environs of Constantine, and the want of tarsi on the forefeet has proved invariable in all four species, at all events as far as my observations go. Therefore the Scarabæus is maimed from birth, and it must be no accident but a natural peculiarity.