WAYS OF THE WILD.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 23, 28 January 1928, Page 1 (Supplement)

WAYS OF THE WILD.

A NATURALISTS NOTEBOOK.

THE SCARAB BEEXIg,

(By A. T. PYCROFT.)'

A native beetle, common on sand hills in the North, and which the writer found

in numbers on the ocean beach in Whangarei Bay, and several on Taranga or "Hen" Island, was referred to Mr. A. S. Brookes, a leading authority on New Zealand coleoptera, who informs me that this beetle, which I referred to as similar to the rhinoceros bettle, so destructive in Samoa, is, like the rhinoceros beetle, a member of the great Scarab family, but is a distinct genus. It is known as Pericopterus Truneatus; it burrows into the sand hills during davtime; its tracks may be seen in certain localities on the West Coast beaches; at dusk it is to be seen flying in large numbers in certain localities.

The late Major T. Broun states: "The larva may be met with occasionally in the loose sand of the sea beach, under logs, whose buried portion has become somewhat decomposed- I have not been able to find the pupa, but I have frequently, especially on calm mornings, followed the tracks of the perfectinsects along the beach, whereon they t»afl been disporting during the night, and these invariably ceased amongst the loose dnft sand, into which it must be evident the beetles had burrowed, very deeply, too, as I could never excavate a hole deeo enough to reach them by Another remarkable trait remains to " the extraordinary paucity °f female specimens of the many tying on the beach at various timoe, j can only remember having found one faSiiv • w ® U - know » member of this family is the Sacre or Scarab of the gyptians. It was well known to the on account of its carious and U WM worshipped and regarded as sacred by the EirvntiaiM. MM on their pamtmgs and amulets, and carved on their tombs and monuments, Symbols of the Cosmos. figures of the beetle in jewels and stone were made in large nuibSre £*£*1 "ferred with the bodies of • drive away evil spirits. Tha itself was often placed in the sometimes it was embalmed. •dopted as a religious symbol to represent the motions of the e^ h ' *nd Bnn, and a unique birth, on accomit of their rolling balls of dung, and erf I their sudden appearance, often in great numbers, on the margins of the wile, after the annual rising and falling ULJS- V t f'^ Tbey conrfdS symbohttl of the world on account of the globular form of their pellets of and from oM notion that they rolled from sunrise to sunset. As a symbol of the sun, because of the angular projections from the resembling the rays and the ball h-ing rolled backwards with their feet whilst • the beetles themselves looked forward, r As the sun appears to proceed in the r heaven in a course contrary to the r thus the scarabaei turn the balls towards i the west, whilst they themselves cod'* r tinue to move towards the east; the | first of these motions was considered to j exhibit the diurnal, and the second the e annual motion of the earth and <*»«» j planets. They chose the insect as a symbol of >1 the moon which divides year into i months of twenty-eight days each, a because they believed the pellet of the e scarabaeuß remained in the ground for a e period of twenty-eight days. As there !i were supposed to be no females of tTii« i species (Boun states that of hundreds eof dead species of the scarab - which he found, he only saw one female) it was chosen as the type -of } phtah, the creative power, and of - regeneration or reproduction, because it > was the first animal observed after the s subsidence of the waters of the Kile. Scavengers of the Land. The scarab which is found in Provence i in France, in the South of France, in > Egypt, Barbery, and many other coun- ' tries, is a large beetle, black in colour, i with long legs and awkward action. It - possesses ample Wings, concealed beneath 1 the wing cases when on the ground, and 1 can fly readily. The head is armed with ' teeth, with which it digs, and the back - legs are long and bent round, which en- - ables them to grasp the ball of dung. * Most beetles, and, indeed, all insects, 1 possess "T feet, usually composed of 1 five joints each, but in this species the j front pair of legs do not possess any 1 feet at aIL In other of the dung feeders 8 which do possess front feet, these feet 1 are often to be found broken or injured * by continual digging in hard ground, 6 and can be of little, if any, use to the e beetles. Darwin suggests that the want 1 of front feet in this' species is due to '' the effects of long continued disuse. The scarab acts as a scavenger by break- ) ing up and burying the droppings of 1 cattle and other animals It will thns e be seen to play a very important part lin the economy of nature. They collect 8 balls of dung, which they roll and e eventually bury in the ground.

It was supposed that these balls contained the eggs of the beetle, and it is so stated in most of the works on natural history which deals with this insect. Fabre has shown, however, that this is not the case. For two months in June and July the beetles are busy collecting and rolling balls of dung, which thev devour. When the weather

gets too hot they bury themselves in the cool ground and reappear in the spring. Their attention is then taken up with the continuation of their race. The beetle collects masses of dung with its front legs, which are bent, and passes them under its body to the long circular back legs, which shape the masses into a ball. The ball is turned underneath the beetle and rolled into a perfect sphere.

In a very short time a large ball is collected, sometimes as large as an apple. All the time the position of the ball is changed with the liind feet, •so that every part of it comes in contact with the earth, and it is thus rolled hard and round. The object of the beetle is to move the ball away to a suitable spot where it can dig a hole, bury and devour it at leisure, taking from a week to a fortnight ovef it. Special chambers are prepared in the spring for the eggs. The female beetle lines it with targe quantities of dung arranged in different layers. The centre layer, which contains the egg, consists of a creamy paste for the newly hatched grub to feed on. The outer layers become coarser and coarser, to be more suitable to the grub as it grows larger. The grub changes to a chrysalis when full fed. and when hatched the insect Ibreaks out of the earth and flies away.