Of yet another species, the _Ateuchus cicatricosus_, the sexes “live in pairs, and seem much attached to each other; the male excites the female to roll the balls of dung in which the ova are deposited, and if she is removed he becomes much agitated. If the male is removed the female ceases all work, and, as M. Brulerie believes, would remain on the same spot until she died.”[72] But M. Brulerie was reckoning apparently without M. Fabre, since whose investigations in this last department it may be said that “_nous avons changé tout cela_.” For this _Ateuchus_ is none other than the celebrated Scarabæus, or sacred beetle, and, in the first place, M. Fabre has shown that the balls of dung, which are rolled about by them with so much perseverance and energy, do not contain the ova, as it was always thought that they did, but are merely provender and nothing more, and though sometimes they are rolled by two beetles together, these are not the male and female, or, at any rate, they need not be. They are just as likely to be two males or two females, and in any case, though the two may be of opposite sexes, they do not represent a mated pair. Simply when the two—if, as is by no means always the case, more than one take part in the rolling—have pulled and pushed the ball to a suitable place, they make a hole in the ground, into which they drag it, and, having closed the aperture, sit and feast at their leisure. According to Fabre the vital principle contained in the egg would be destroyed were it rolled about in this fashion, so when the mother Scarabæus, who, it would appear, works in this matter alone, is ready to lay her eggs, she first makes an excavation, and then brings the dung down into it in pellets, till there is a heap of it, which fills the whole concern. Then “the first thing to do is to select very carefully, taking what is most delicate for the inner layers, upon which the larva will feed, and the coarser for the outer ones, which merely serve as a protecting shell. There around a central hollow which receives the egg the materials must be arranged layer after layer, according to their decreasing fineness and nutritive value; the strata must be made consistent, and adhere one to another; and finally the bits of fibre in the outside crust, which has to protect the whole thing, must be felted together.”[73] Thus, when the grub first issues from the egg, it finds light digestible food ready to hand, which becomes coarser and more fibrous with its growth and increased capacity of assimilating such stronger diet. As more and more is eaten, the ball, which is about the size of an ordinary apple, becomes hollower and hollower, till at last, when only the outer crust remains, the grub is ready to enter upon that wonderful series of changes—called its metamorphoses—which will bring it forth into this larger ball of dirt, a complete beetle, with a useful profession, that of scavenger, immediately open to it.