Well, what becomes of this surplus time placed at the service of the organic labour? Does the promised horn ripen? Not a bit of it: it withers just as it does under the stimulus of a hot sun. The records of entomology have never spoken of an Onthophagus carrying a horn upon his corselet. No one would even have suspected the possibility of such an armour, if I had not rumoured the strange appearance of the nymph. The influence of climate, therefore, goes for nothing here. Pushed further still, the question becomes more complicated. The horny appendages of the Onthophagus, of the Copris, of Minotaurus and of so many others are the male’s prerogative; the female is without them or wears them only on a reduced and very modest scale. We must look upon these corniculate products as personal ornaments much rather than as implements of labour. The male makes himself fine for the pairing; but, with the exception of Minotaurus, who pins down the dry pellet that needs crushing and holds it in position with his trident, I know none that uses his armour as a tool. Horns and prongs on the forehead, crests and crescents on the corselet are jewels of masculine vanity and nothing more. The other sex requires no such baits to attract suitors: its femininity is enough; and finery is neglected. Now here is something to give us food for thought. The nymph of the Onthophagus of the female sex, a nymph with an unarmed forehead, carries on its thorax a vitreous horn as long, as rich in promise as that of the other sex. If this latter excrescence be an incompletely-realized incipient ornament, then the former would be so too, in which case the two sexes, both anxious for self-embellishment, would work with equal zeal to grow a horn upon their thorax. We should be witnessing the genesis of a species that would not be really an Onthophagus, but a derivative of the group; we should be beholding the commencement of singularities banished hitherto from among the Dung-beetles, none of whom, of either sex, has thought of planting a spear upon his chine. Stranger still: the female, always the more humbly attired throughout the entomological order, would be vying with the male in her propensity for eccentric adornment. An ambition of this sort leaves me incredulous.