TCD MS 10515 folio 90 verso
It is most amusing to watch the skill and diligence with which the beetles mould their pellets and the hasle with which they roll them away. A carab is at work. It has discovered
determination and bravery. They shared the trenches with colonies of harvesting ants and little sand-coloured lizards. No doubt the trench refuse had attracted them for they burrowed into the parapets and traverses and riddled the sides of the communication passages with their numerous excavations. The were the cleansers of our camps and the purifiers of the desert. So intense was their industry that, I have no doubt that within a few turns of the passage of our force, the desert had been swept clean. They are the scavengers of an army, the fertilizers of the soil.
It is most amusing to watch the skill and diligence with which the beetles mould their pellets and the hasle with which they roll them away. A carab is at work. It has discovered
determination and bravery. They shared the trenches with colonies of harvesting ants and little sand-coloured lizards. No doubt the trench refuse had attracted them for they burrowed into the parapets and traverses and riddled the sides of the communication passages with their numerous excavations. The were the cleansers of our camps and the purifiers of the desert. So intense was their industry that, I have no doubt that within a few turns of the passage of our force, the desert had been swept clean. They are the scavengers of an army, the fertilizers of the soil.
It is most amusing to watch the skill and diligence with which the beetles mould their pellets and the hasle with which they roll them away. A carab is at work. It has discovered