On the other hand, the scarabs, I fear I must admit, are terrible thieves; and if one scarab has lost his own ball, and sees some companion's pellet come rolling down hill towards him, he will often give up the pursuit of his lost property, and quietly and barefacedly appropriate his neighbour's. I have seen great fights take place at times over a disputed ball; though sometimes the combatants agree amicably to roll it along in common, and probably share it when they have reached their hole. Sometimes, again, three or four will unite to roll a ball: and then, when one loses it, the others combine to hold it up or catch it. I have spent hours together both in Egypt and on the Mediterranean or the Adriatic in watching the queer antics of these comic little commissioners of drainage: and I never tire of observing their odd and unexpected combinations of interest. I have sometimes known the real owner abandon a ball in despair, from the unevenness of the ground, and then seen a couple of outsiders come up and succeed in doing what the true owner had been unable to accomplish. In No. 6 you see two such scarabs whose toil has at last been crowned by success, and who are delivering their balls with joy into the holes in the sand which form their residences. As far as I can make out, a pair of beetles, male and female, seem usually to share a hole in common, and to roll balls of food to it either alone or in concert. I cannot say I have ever seen much co-operation except between such partners. Once a ball is secured and safely landed--for here, as elsewhere, there's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip--the happy couple proceed to eat it up, and apparently do not emerge again from their burrow till the supply is exhausted. Patient naturalists say that one ball has been known to last a scarab as long as a fortnight, but this I do not vouch for of personal knowledge. When more food is wanted, the couple emerge once more on the open sand and begin to collect fresh dung and refuse, which they roll into a new food-ball and then dry and harden. [Illustration: 6.--PRIMITIVE GOLF--END OF A ROUND: THE SCARABS HOLING THEIR BALLS.] Till very lately, it was universally believed that the female scarab laid an egg in some of the balls, and that the young grubs hatched within such food-stocks and began at once to devour them. This belief has recently been contradicted with great emphasis by a good French observer, who opened many balls and found no eggs; but I cannot accept his conclusion. I opened numbers of balls myself near Venice this year, and saw in several one or two eggs, while in one case (unearthed from a hole) I discovered a half-grown larva. I venture therefore in this matter to believe my own eyes as against those of even the most celebrated and authoritative entomologists.