Scarabaeidae

“ The Scarab, therefore, shapes the larva’s ration into a sphere (we will leave the neck of the pear out of the question for the moment) ; and this round form is not the result of blind mechanical conditions, imposing an inevitable shape upon the worker; it is not the violent effect of the rolling along the ground. We have already seen that, for the purpose of easier and swifter transit, the insect kneads into a perfect sphere the materials which it intends to consume at a distance, without moving that sphere from the spot on which it rests ”

“ The Scarabæus then, instead of the rude, straightforward representation of the Egyptian workman, assumes a more elegant form, with elaborate sculpture of all the insect characteristics, the edges of the wings and the lines that divide them from the chest being exquisitely beaded and wrought, and the claws being relieved and modelled with the highest care and most artistic finish. The form of the image, in fact, generally resembles more the beautiful green beetle which I have often caught in the mountains around Rome, than his plebeian and utilitarian cousin, the Scarabæus pilularius. ”

“ By the time he has eaten his way to the centre he is strong enough to manage with very little air.
There is, of course, a good reason for the hardness of the shell that covers the big end of the pear. The Scarab’s burrow is extremely hot: sometimes the temperature reaches boiling point. The provisions, even though they have to last only three or four weeks, are liable to dry up and become uneatable. When, instead of the soft food of its first meal, the unhappy grub finds nothing to eat but horrible crusty stuff as hard as a pebble, it is bound to die of hunger. ”

“ At its touch, the shell recovers the softness of its early days, the casket becomes yielding; the insect makes play with its legs, pushes with its back; it is free. It is, in fact, in the month of September, during the first rains which herald the coming autumn, that the Scarab leaves the native burrow and comes to enliven the pastoral sward, even as the former generation enlivened it in the spring. ”

“ There was also another reason for the Egyptian linking the insect and the god together: as the young beetle came forth from the ball of clay it was believed that a female beetle did not exist, that it was consequently the “only-begotten,” because it was a “creature self-produced and not conceived by a female.” Hence we find that for this reason it is said to have been taken as the emblem of Khepera, the “Father of the Gods,” who created all things out of clay. Consequently we find that several archaeologists attach a sacred meaning to the myriads of scarabs that have been found in Egypt ”

“ The pill-rollers, whether Scarabs or Gymnopleuri, never have more than a single pear, a single ovoid in their burrows. The mass of foodstuff, which at times is rolled from a great distance, is necessarily limited by the insect’s own limitations of strength. It is enough for one larva, but not enough for two. An exception must be made with respect to the Broad-necked Scarab, who brings up her family very frugally and divides her rolling booty into two modest portions. ”

“ Once more the heights are climbed, and another fall is the result. Again and again the insect begins the ascent. The merest trifle ruins everything; a grass-root may trip him up or a smooth bit of gravel make him slip, and down come ball and Beetle, all mixed up together. Ten or twenty times he will start afresh, till at last he is successful, or else sees the hopelessness of his efforts and resigns himself to taking the level road.
Sometimes the Scarab seems to enter into partnership with a friend. ”

“ I need hardly say that I have not failed to experiment with the insect in these difficult circumstances. Pear-shaped shells are gathered containing the full-grown Scarab, who is on the point of issuing, in view of the lateness of the season. These shells, already dry and very hard, are laid in a box where they retain their aridity. A little earlier in one case, a little later in the other, I hear the sharp grating of a rasp inside each shell. It is the prisoner working to make himself an outlet by scraping the wall with the rake of his shield and fore-feet. ”

“ 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? ”

“ The Scarab is a strenuous miner and a great pedestrian. Always in contact with the rough soil, whether in walking or digging; used, moreover, for constant leverage when the insect is rolling its ball backwards, the fore-legs are much more exposed than the others to the danger of spraining and twisting their delicate finger, of putting it out of joint, of losing it entirely, from the very first moment when the work begins.
Lest this explanation should appeal to any of my readers, I will hasten to undeceive them. The absence of the front fingers is not the result of an accident. ”

“ Fig. 52.
Material. Specimens of button-seals have been found in gold, amethyst, carnelian, lapis lazuli, black steatite, steatite glazed blue or green, ivory, bone, and blue or green glazed pottery. The hemi-cylinders are only as yet known in steatite glazed blue or green.
3. Scarab-shaped Seals.
Scarab-shaped seals. By far the commonest form of Egyptian seal was that cut in the shape of the scarabaeus beetle, hence its name, “Scarab” or “Scarabaeus,” from the Greek name of the insect, [Greek: skarabos] or [Greek: skarabeios] (Latin scarabaeus) . ”

“ Let us next try to understand the Scarab’s logic. Let us find out why she has to make that pear of hers, so unusual a shape in insect structures; let us seek to explain the suitability of the egg’s curious position. We are venturing on dangerous ground when we enquire into the how and wherefore of things. We easily lose our footing in that mysterious land where the moving soil gives way beneath us, swallowing the foolhardy in the quicksands of error. ”

“ I am often spoken of as a Coleopterist,—he said,—but I have no right to so comprehensive a name. The genus Scarabaeus is what I have chiefly confined myself to, and ought to have studied exclusively. The beetles proper are quite enough for the labor of one man's life. Call me a Scarabaeist if you will; if I can prove myself worthy of that name, my highest ambition will be more than satisfied.
I think, by way of compromise and convenience, I shall call him the Scarabee. He has come to look wonderfully like those creatures,—the beetles, I mean,—by being so much among them. ”

“ The burrow is ready. It is a cavity dug in soft earth, usually in sand, shallow, the size of one’s fist and communicating with the outside by a short channel just large enough for the passage of the ball. As soon as the provisions are safely housed, the Scarab shuts himself in by stopping up the entrance to his dwelling with rubbish reserved for the purpose in a corner. Once the door is closed, no sign outside betrays the banqueting-hall. And, now, welcome mirth and jollity! All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds! ”

“ At least four species of beetles appear to have been held in veneration and were distinguished, by the absence or presence, of striated elytra. The Ateuchus sacer is the one commonly represented on the monuments. The number of the toes, thirty, symbolized the days of the month, and the movement of the ball, which it manufactured and in which was deposited its egg, symbolized among other things, the action of Ra, the Egyptian sun-deity, at midday.
[7] The Egyptian soldier wore the scarab as a charm or amulet, to increase bravery; [8] the women, to increase fertility. ”

“ Under conditions of exceptional coolness of the earth, the bursting of the shell and the emerging of its occupant can occur at an earlier period; but, in ground scorched by the fierce sun of summer, as is usually the case in these parts, the Scarab, however eager he may be to see the light, must needs wait for the first rains to soften his stubborn shell. A downpour means to him a question of life and death. Horapollo, that echo of the Egyptian magi, saw true when he made water play its part in the insect’s birth. ”

“ Because a workman or several workmen have had a hand crushed in machinery, it does not follow that all others should be maimed. If the Scarabæus often, or even very often, loses the fore-claws in its trade of ball-roller, there must be some which, cleverer or more fortunate, have preserved their tarsi. Let us then consult facts. I have observed a very large number of the species of Scarabæus which inhabit France, the S. sacer, common in Provence ”

“ In the same way, it will be shown presently that the pear destined for the worm is fashioned down in the burrow. It undergoes no process of rolling, it is not even moved. The Scarab gives it the requisite outline exactly as a modelling artist would do, shaping his clay under the pressure of the thumb.
Supplied with the tools which it possesses, the insect would be capable of obtaining other forms of a less dainty curve than its pear-shaped work. It could, for instance, make the coarse cylinder, the sausage in use among the Geotrupes ”

“ The worm sheds its skin and becomes a chrysalis. There are very few in the entomological world to vie in sober beauty with the tender creature which, with its wing-cases laid in front of it like a wide-creased scarf and its fore-legs folded under its head, as when the full-grown Scarab counterfeits death, suggests the idea of a mummy maintained by its bandages in a sacerdotal pose. Semi-translucent and honey-yellow, it looks as though it were cut from a block of amber. ”

“ Another very distinct group of insects which act as scavengers in a different way in hotter climates than ours are the famous scarabs or sacred beetles, worshipped almost like gods by the ancient Egyptians. English people know the scarabs best, I think, in the neighbourhood of Naples, or on the Lido at Venice—that great bank of sand and shingle which separates the lagoons from the open Adriatic. ”

“ Of the many animals worshiped by the ancient Egyptians, one of the most celebrated, perhaps, is the insect commonly known as the Sacred-scarab—Scarabæus sacer. This name was given it by Linnæus, but later writers know it as the Ateuchus sacer.51 The insect is found throughout all Egypt, in the southern part of Europe,52 in China, the East Indies, in Barbary, and at the Cape of Good Hope.53
The Ateuchus sacer, however, is not the only insect that was regarded as an object of veneration by the Egyptians ”

“ Left standing where it is, the opaque sheath will provide the dusk which the Scarab demands; suddenly raised, it will give the light which I require on my side.
Things being thus arranged, I go in search of a mother lately removed from her natural lodging with her ball. A morning is enough to provide me with what I need. I place the mother and her ball on the surface of the upper layer of earth; I cap the apparatus with its cardboard sheath; and I wait. The insect, stubborn at [38] its work so long as the egg is not deposited, will dig itself a new burrow, dragging its ball with it as it goes ”

“ What might not happen to the insect’s feeble fingers, slender as thread, in consequence of this continual rubbing against the rough soil? They are merely useless encumbrances; one day or other they seem bound to disappear, crushed, torn off, worn out in a thousand ways. We know unfortunately that our own workmen are all too frequently injured in handling heavy tools and lifting great weights; even so might the Scarab be crippled in rolling his ball, an enormous load to him. ”

“ But sometimes the thief bides his time and trusts to cunning. He pretends to help the victim to roll the food along, over sandy plains thick with thyme, over cart-ruts and steep places, but he really does very little of the work, preferring to sit on the ball and do nothing. When a suitable place for a burrow is reached the rightful [15] owner begins to dig with his sharp-edged forehead and toothed legs, flinging armfuls of sand behind him, while the thief clings to the ball, shamming dead. The cave grows deeper and deeper, and the working Scarab disappears from view. ”

“ In the first place I considered the manner in which the parchment had come into my possession. The spot where we discovered the scarabaeus was on the coast of the mainland, about a mile eastward of the island, and but a short distance above high-water mark. Upon my taking hold of it, it gave me a sharp bite, which caused me to let it drop. Jupiter, with his accustomed caution, before seizing the insect, which had flown towards him, looked about him for a leaf, or something of that nature, by which to take hold of it. ”

“ Scenes are constantly happening such as this: a Scarab walks off, peacefully and alone, rolling his ball, his lawful property, acquired by conscientious work. Another comes flying up, I know not whence, drops down heavily, folds his smoky wings under their elytra and, with the back of his toothed armlets, knocks over the owner, who is powerless to ward off the attack in his harnessed posture. While the dispossessed one struggles to his feet, the other perches himself atop the ball, the best position from which to repel the assailant. ”