Manifestly we have here a progressive change of diet. On leaving the egg, the frail grub licks the dainty broth on the walls of its cell. There is not much of this, but it is strengthening and very nutritious. The pap of earliest infancy is followed by the more solid food given to the weaned nurseling, a sort of paste that stands midway between the exquisitely delicate fare at the start and the coarse provisions at the finish. There is a thick layer of it, enough to turn the infant into a sturdy youngster. But now for the strong comes strong meat: barley-bread with its husks, that is to say, natural droppings full of sharp bits of hay. Of this the larva has enough and to spare; and, when it has attained its full growth, there remains an enclosing layer. The capacity of the dwelling has increased with the growth of the occupant, fed on the very substance of the walls; the original little cell with the very thick walls is now a big cell with walls only a few millimetres in thickness; the inner layers have become larva, nymph or Beetle, according to the period. Lastly, the ball itself is a stout shell, protecting within its spacious interior the mysterious processes of the metamorphosis. I can go no farther, for lack of observations; my records of the birth of the Sacred Beetle stop short at the egg. I have not seen the larva, which however is known and is described in the text-books; [14] nor have I seen the perfect insect while still enclosed in its chamber in the ball, before it has had any practice in its duties as a pill-roller and excavator. And this is just what I particularly wanted to see. I should have liked to find the Dung-beetle in his native cell, recently transformed, new to all labour, so as to examine the workman’s hand before it started its work. I will tell you the reason for this wish. Insects have at the end of each leg a sort of finger, or tarsus as it is called, consisting of a succession of delicate parts which may be compared with the joints of our fingers. They end in a hooked claw. One finger to each leg: that is the rule; and this finger, at least with the higher Beetles and notably the Dung-beetles, has five phalanges or joints. Now, by a really strange exception, the Scarabs have no tarsi on their front legs, while possessing very well-shaped ones, with five joints apiece, on the two other pairs. They are maimed, crippled: they lack, on their fore-limbs, that which in the insect very roughly represents our hand. A similar anomaly occurs in the Onitis- and Bubas-beetles, who also belong to the Dung-beetle family. Entomology has long recorded this curious fact, without being able to offer a satisfactory explanation. Is the creature born maimed, does it come into the world without fingers to its forelimbs? Or does it lose them by accident, once it is given over to its toilsome labours?