The Scarab does not always push his precious ball alone: sometimes he takes a partner; or, to be accurate, the partner takes him. This is how the thing usually happens: once his ball is ready, a Dung-beetle issues from the crowd and leaves the work-yard, pushing his spoil behind him. A neighbour, one of the newcomers, whose own task is hardly begun, suddenly drops his work and runs to the ball now rolling, to lend a hand to the lucky owner, who seems to accept the proffered aid kindly. Henceforth, the two cronies work as partners. Each does his best to push the pellet to a place of safety. Was a compact really concluded in the work-yard, a tacit agreement to share the cake between them? While one was kneading and moulding the ball, was the other tapping rich veins whence to extract choice materials and add them to the common store? I have never observed such a collaboration; I have always seen each Dung-beetle occupied solely with his own affairs in the works. The last-comer, therefore, has no acquired rights. Is it, then, a partnership between the two sexes, a couple intending to set up house? I thought so for a time. The two beetles, one before, one behind, pushing the heavy ball with equal zeal, reminded me of a song which the barrel-organs used to grind out some years ago: Pour monter notre menage, hélas! comment feront-nous? Toi devant et moi derrière, nous pousserons le tonneau. [1] The evidence of the scalpel compelled me to abandon this domestic idyll. There is no outward difference between the two sexes in the Dung-beetle. I, therefore, dissected the two beetles engaged in conveying one and the same ball; and they often proved to belong to the same sex. Neither community of family nor community of toil! Then what is the motive for this apparent partnership? It is just simply an attempt at robbery. The eager fellow-worker, under the deceitful pretence of lending a helpful hand, nurses the scheme of purloining the ball at the first opportunity. To make one’s own ball at the heap implies drudgery and patience; to steal one ready-made, or at least to foist one’s self as a guest, is a much easier matter. Should the owner’s vigilance slacken, you can run away with the treasure; should you be too closely watched, you can sit down to table uninvited, pleading services rendered. It is, “Heads I win, tails you lose,” in these tactics, so that pillage is exercised as one of the most lucrative of trades. Some go to work craftily, in the way I have just described: they come to the aid of a comrade who has not the least need of them and hide a most indelicate greed under the cloak of charitable assistance. Others, bolder perhaps, more confident in their strength, go straight to the goal and commit robbery with violence.