In Brazil, the beetles have such beautifully colored, hard-shelled coats upon their backs that they are often set in pins and necklaces like precious stones. Once upon a time, years and years ago, they had ordinary plain brown coats. This is how it happened that the Brazilian beetle earned a new coat.

One day, a little brown beetle was crawling along a wall, when a big grey rat ran out of a hole in the wall and looked down scornfully at the little beetle. “O ho!” he said to the beetle, “how slowly you crawl along. You’ll never get anywhere in the world. Just look at me and see how fast I can run.”

The big grey rat ran to the end of the wall, wheeled around, and came back to the place where the little beetle was slowly crawling along at only a tiny distance from where the rat had left her.

“Don’t you wish that you could run like that?” said the big grey rat to the little brown beetle.