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 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.