We found the little beetle just after sunup near the top of a dune, some 40 miles from the sea. It was already 93 degrees Fahrenheit, and the little creature, a kind of scarab, was standing on its forelegs, its back to the coastal breezes, its hindquarters waving feebly in the air, though whether to help it maintain balance I couldn't tell. My guide, a lanky Afrikaner called Piet Pieterse, interposed his hand between the sun and the beetle, and the little creature flopped over, indignantly I thought, and then, when the shadow disappeared, resumed its precarious balancing act.