The dung beetle.
1806. A caricature, called “Revolutionary Tumble-bugs, or Perpetual Rotation in Office,” appeared as an advertisement in The Repertory, Oct. 10 (Boston).
1851. I am the fellow what see you running out of the store like a duck arter a tumble-bug.—S. Judd, ‘Margaret,’ i. 116.
a. 1854. We hang on to it as affectionately as a tumble bug to its ball.—Dow, Jun., ‘Patent Sermons,’ iii. 279.
1860. And I do n’t see why a man in gold spectacles and a white cravat stuck up in a library, stuck up in a pulpit, stuck up in a professor’s chair, stuck up in a Governor’s chair, or in the President’s chair, should be of any more account than a possum or a tumble-bug.—From an early parody of Walt Whitman, Knick. Mag., lvi. 102 (July).
1861. The blood of these Hessians would poison the most degraded tumble bug in creation.—From a Cairo (Ill.) paper: W. H. Russell, ‘My Diary, North and South,’ June 20.
