Note 5 — Chapter XII · SOME ANOMALIES

Away with such foolishness! No, the Scarab did not at one time have the tarsi which he lacks to-day; no, he did not lose them as the result of being harnessed upside down when rolling his pill. He is now what he always was. Who says so? Unimpeachable witnesses: the Gymnopleurus and the Sisyphus,5 themselves enthusiastic pill-rollers. Like the Scarab, they push them backwards, head down; like the Scarab, they support themselves, during their arduous task, on the tips of their fore-legs; and those legs, notwithstanding their contact with the rough ground, are as perfectly fingered as the others: they possess the delicate tarsi which the Scarab is denied. Then why should the latter prove an exception to what in the others is the rule? How gladly would I welcome a word from the discerning person who could answer my humble question!