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Powerless to withdraw his booty from the abyss, the wily Dung-beetle summons three or four of his neighbours, who kindly pull out the pellet and return to their labours when the work of salvage is done. The Sacred Beetle and Others: chap. i. The ill-interpreted exploit of the thieving pill-roller sets me on my guard against that of the undertaker.
He bowed, setting the buttercup a-rocking, and introduced himself: "Bobbie, of the family of rose-beetles." Maya had to laugh to herself. She knew very well he was not a rose-beetle; he was a dung-beetle. But she passed the matter over in silence, not caring to mortify him. "Don't you mind the rain?" she asked. "Oh, no. I'm accustomed to the rain from the roses, you know.
An assiduous companion of the chase, he knows better than any one of his age the secrets of the Cigale, the Cricket, and especially of the dung-beetle, his great delight. At a distance of twenty yards his clear sight distinguishes the refuse-tip of a beetle's burrow from a chance lump of earth; his fine ear will catch the chirping of a grasshopper inaudible to me.
It is an exact repetition of that which the various modellers have shown us at the top of their calabashes and pears. All of them are acquainted with the nice secret of the felt stopper as a means of ventilating the egg in a water-tight enclosure. Your name is not an attractive one, my pretty Dung-beetle of the pampas, but your industrial methods are most remarkable.
The dung-beetle works from without inwards; she begins to dig at the mouth of the burrow, and afterwards re-ascends and accumulates the excavated material on the surface. The larva of the Cigale, on the contrary, works outward from within, upward from below; it opens the door of exit at the last moment, so that it is not free for the discharge of excavated material until the work is done.
The actual distribution of instinct upsets our most reasonable previsions. It upsets our expectations so completely that we are surprised to find in the dung-beetle the noble prerogative which is lacking in the bee tribe. The mates of several species of dung-beetle keep house together and know the worth of mutual labour.
The Necrophorus must assume the adult form in the course of the summer; like the Dung-beetle, he must enjoy in the autumn a few days of revelry free from family cares. Then, when the cold weather draws near, he goes to earth in his winter quarters, whence he emerges as soon as spring arrives.
Phanæus splendidulus, the glittering, the resplendent: this is the epithet selected by the official nomenclators to describe the handsomest Dung-beetle of the pampas. The name is not at all exaggerated. Combining the fire of gems with metallic lustre, the insect, according to the incidence of the light, emits the green reflections of the emerald or the gleam of ruddy copper.
At first she would call to him as she did so with words that she probably considered friendly, such as "come on then, you old dung-beetle!", or "look at the old dung-beetle there!" Gregor never responded to being spoken to in that way, but just remained where he was without moving as if the door had never even been opened.
Peace begins in the most spirited and lively manner; the peace- loving Trygaeus rides on a dung-beetle to heaven in the manner of Bellerophon; War, a desolating giant, with his comrade Riot, alone, in place of all the other gods, inhabits Olympus, and there pounds the cities of men in a great mortar, making use of the most celebrated generals for pestles.
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