Page:The Life of the Spider.djvu/15

Preface magnificent, as the case may be, grotesque or sinister, heroic or appalling, genial or stupid and almost always improbable and unintelligible.

And here, to begin with, taking the first that comes, is one of those individuals, frequent in the South, where we can see it prowling around the abundant manna which the mule scatters heedlessly along the white roads and the stony paths: I mean the Sacred Scarab of the Egyptians, or, more simply, the Dung-beetle, the brother of our northern Geotrupes, a big Coleopteron all clad in black, whose mission in this world is to shape the more savoury parts of the prize into an enormous ball which he must next roll to the subterranean dining-room where the incredible digestive adventure is to take its course. But destiny, jealous of all undiluted bliss, before admitting him to that spot of sheer delight, imposes upon the grave and probably sententious beetle tribulations without number, which are nearly always complicated by the arrival of an untoward parasite.

Hardly has he begun, by dint of great efforts of his frontal shield and bandy legs, to roll the toothsome sphere backwards, when an 11