Observe also that the hind-legs of the perfect insect are longer and stronger than the middle-legs and vie with the fore-legs in vigour. The atrophied limbs of the grub, therefore, become the adult’s powerful pressing-machine; the impotent stumps change into strong stamping-tools. Who will tell us the origin of these anomalies now thrice observed among the dung-workers? The Sacred Beetle, who is sound in every limb during his infancy, loses his fore-fingers when the adult form appears; the Onthophagus, who sports a horn on his thorax in his nymphal stage, drops it and does without the ornament in the end; the Geotrupes, at first a limping grub, turns his useless stumps into the best of his levers. The last-named makes progress; the others retrocede. Why does the cripple become able-bodied and why do the able-bodied become cripples? We make chemical analyses of the suns; we surprise the nebulæ in labour and watch the birth of worlds; and shall we never know why a miserable grub is born limping? Come, ye divers who fathom life’s mysteries, descend a little lower into the depths and at least bring us back that humble pearl, the reply to the problems of the Geotrupes and the Sacred Beetle! When the weather is severe, what becomes of the larva in the retreat which it has succeeded in making at the far end of its box? The exceptional cold of January and February 1895 will answer this question. My cages, always left in the open air, had repeatedly undergone a drop in temperature of some ten degrees below freezing-point. In this arctic weather, I conceived a wish to go in search of information and learn how things were progressing in my unprotected cages. I could not manage it. The bed of earth, wetted by the earlier rains, had become a compact block throughout, which I should have had to break up like a stone with a hammer and chisel. Extraction by violent means was not practicable: I should have endangered everything with my hammering. On the other hand, if any life remained in the frozen mass, I should have placed it in jeopardy by changing the temperature too suddenly. It was better to await the very slow natural thaw. Early in March I inspect the cages again. This time there is no ice left. The earth is yielding and easy to dig. All the adult Geotrupes have died, bequeathing me a fresh supply of sausages, almost as plentiful as that which I had gathered and placed in safety in October. They have all perished; there is not a single survivor. Is cold or old age to blame?