More poetic than "scarab": "tumble-turd", 1737 & 1743, antedates OED2 1754--

[Joel S. Berson]

"tumble-, comb. form" "tumble-turd",  OED2  1754--.

(1)  1737:

"The Tumble-turds, are a Species of the Beetles, and so called, from
their constant rowling the Horse-dung (whereon they feed) from one
place to another, 'till it is no bigger than a small Bullet."

John Brickell, _The Natural History of North-Carolina ..._ (Dublin:
James Carson, 1737), 161.  GBooks.


(2)  1743:

"Here [Pennsylvania and/or New Jersey] is a Beetle, called by the
Natives a Tumbleturd, which for the Oddness of its Building its Nest,
deserves a Description. About April, both Male and Female, leave
their old abiding Place, to find a more proper one; which having
done, find out a Hole about two Foot under Ground, into which they
descend, by a Crack made by the Heat of the Sun, in order to make
their Nest, then they leave the Place, and after they have found a
small Piece of wet Earth, the Bigness of a Pea, the roll it along the
Ground, growing as it gathers the Dust, to the Place appointed, where
they tumble it in, and lay their Eggs in the midst of the Ball, which
is as large as a Coit, where they are hatched by the Sun."

William Moraley, _The Infortunate_ (Newcastle: J. White, 1743).  In
Susan E. Klepp & Billy G. White, eds., _The Infortunate_, 2nd ed.
(University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992), p. 55.

The editors gloss "coit" as "quoit".  Somewhat larger than Brickell
says? but perhaps requisite when breeding.  For Moraley, whom the
editors call a "picaro", a rolling turd gathers much dust.

Is "wet earth" a euphemism?  The OED does not gloss "turd" so politely.

Joel

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