DUNG-BEETLE. A name given to various beetles of the family Searabid:e, belonging chiefly to the genera Cant hon. Copris. Phani iis, Apho dius. Geotrupes, and Troy. All these beetles breed in dung, tither in .sit ig. ar which they have transported in pellets or balls to burrows in the ground. Thus they are useful as scat terers and disposers of offensive matter. Some forms carry their scavenging propensities still further, and feed on decaying aninial matter and on fungi. The American tumhlehugs belong to the first three genera enumerated, and are the forms most familiar to us, heeause they are so frequently seen rolling their pellets along toadwaws and in pasture. Itoth sexes ratite in the labor of rolling the halls, within which the eggs are laid. C'arnticon hrris is a dull, blackish-brown beetle, the eonntonest species of its genus. I'haitwus en•rofer of eastern North America has a eopper-colored thorax :nul green elytra ; the head of the male is ]to•ned. Co/iris rarolina is a black, horned species, occurring slob. the -atlantic slope as far north as Massa chusetts. The genius Aphodius has more than one hundred species in America, frequenting the clung of cattle and horses in pastures. The
adults are on the wing during warn days of aim tunni. '11w most commmwuw species is aplhodius Tiiuretimrins. with red wing-covers. Geotrnpes digs breed ing-lioIes in the eamtlt, into which the female rolls chunks of the dung as food for the young. The skin-bectic Trox, feeds on decaying animal hoofs and hair. Dtntg-beetles have long attracted the at tent iou of man. The Egyptians contemplated them with veneration, plaeed theut in the tombs together with their dead, sculptured amid painted them on their sar cophagi, and made imitations of than of various materials, often of precious sfones. 'i'be ball of dung the E1vptiaus supposed represented the earth, and the beetles the sun: moreover, they v.ire thought to he a race of male, and hence were the syttihol of warriors. This last super stition was earri.•d to Rune. See Sc V2AR.3In.I•: and illu '-tratious on Platt of L'EE'tru:s. Consult \Vard, "A Popular Treatise on l gyptian Scarabs," in Art crud IIistory (Loudon, 1901). DUNGEON. Sec DONJON.