The stercoraceous scent has carried the glad tidings half a mile around; and all have hastened up to gather provisions. A few laggards are still arriving, a-wing or on foot. Who is this that trots towards the heap, fearing lest he come too late? His long legs move with a sudden, awkward action, as though driven by some mechanism within his belly; his little red antennæ spread their fan, a sign of anxious greed. He is coming, he has come, not without sending some few banqueters sprawling. It is the Sacred Beetle, clad all in black, the biggest and most famous of our Dung-beetles. Ancient Egypt held him in veneration and looked upon him as a symbol of immortality. Here he now sits at table, beside his fellow-guests, each of whom is giving the last touches to his ball with the flat of his broad fore-legs or else enriching it with yet one more layer before retiring to enjoy the fruit of his labours in peace. Let us follow the construction of the famous ball in all its phases. The shield, that is to say, the broad, flat edge of the head, is notched with six angular teeth arranged in a semicircle. This constitutes the tool for digging and separating, the rake that lifts and casts aside the unnutritious vegetable fibres, goes for something better, scrapes and collects it together. A choice is thus made, for these dainty epicures differentiate between one thing and another: a casual choice, if the Beetle be interested in his own provender, but a most scrupulous choice, when it becomes a question of constructing the maternal ball. For his own needs, the Beetle is less fastidious and contents himself with a wholesale selection. The notched shield scoops and digs, eliminates and gathers somewhat at random. The fore-legs play a mighty part in the work. They are flattened, curved into the segment of a circle, supplied with powerful nervures and armed on the outside with five sturdy teeth. If a powerful effort be needed to remove an obstacle or to force a way through the thickest part of the heap, the Dung-beetle makes play with his elbows, that is to say, he flings his toothed legs to right and left and clears a semi-circular space with a vigorous thrust of the rake. Room once made, a different kind of work is found for these same limbs: they collect armfuls of the material raked together by the shield and push it under the insect’s belly, between the four hind-legs. These are shaped for the turner’s trade. The legs, especially the last two, are long and slender, slightly bowed and ending in a very sharp claw. One has but to look at them to recognize a pair of spherical compasses capable of embracing a globular body in their curved branches and improving its form. In fact, their mission is to shape the ball.