The Sacred Beetle, and Others

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THE SACRED BEETLE AND OTHERS

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THE WORKS OF J. H. FABRE

• [THE LIFE OF THE SPIDER]
• THE LIFE OF THE FLY
• [THE MASON-BEES]
• [BRAMBLE-BEES AND OTHERS]
• THE HUNTING WASPS
• THE LIFE OF THE CATERPILLAR
• [THE LIFE OF THE GRASSHOPPER]
• THE SACRED BEETLE AND OTHERS

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LONDON: HODDER AND STOUGHTON

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THE WORKS OF J. H. FABRE

THE
SACRED BEETLE
AND OTHERS

BY
J. HENRI FABRE
Translated by
ALEXANDER TEIXEIRA DE MATTOS, F.Z.S.
WITH A PREFACE BY THE AUTHOR

HODDER AND STOUGHTON
LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO

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Copyright in the United States of America,
1918, by Dodd, Mead & Company, Inc. [[v]]

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Author’s Preface

In the building of the nest, the family safeguard, we see the highest manifestation of the faculties of instinct. That clever architect, the bird, teaches us as much; and the insect, with its still more diverse talents, repeats the lesson, telling us that maternity is the supreme inspirer of instinct. Entrusted with the preservation of the species, which is of more importance than the preservation of individuals, maternity awakens in the drowsiest intelligence marvellous gleams of foresight; it is the thrice sacred hearth where are kindled those mysterious psychic fires which will suddenly burst into flame and dazzle us with their semblance of infallible reason. The more maternity asserts itself, the higher does instinct ascend.

In this respect no creatures are more deserving of our attention than the Hymenoptera, upon whom the cares of maternity devolve in their fulness. All these favourites of instinct prepare board and lodging for their offspring. They become master-craftsmen in a host of trades for the sake of a family which their faceted eyes will never behold, but which is nevertheless no stranger to the mother’s powers of foresight. One turns cotton-spinner and produces cotton-wool bottles; another sets up as a basket-maker and weaves hampers out of bits of leaves; a third becomes a mason and builds rooms of cement and domes of road-metal; a fourth opens pottery-works, where clay is kneaded into shapely vases and rounded [[vi]]pots; yet another goes in for mining and digs mysterious underground chambers in the warm, moist earth. A thousand trades similar to ours and often even unknown to our industrial system enter into the preparation of the abode. Next come the provisions for the expected nurselings: piles of honey, loaves of pollen, stores of game, preserved by a cunning paralysing-process. In such works as these, having the future of the family for their sole object, the highest manifestations of instinct are displayed under the stimulus of maternity.

So far as the rest of the insect race is concerned, the mother’s cares are generally most summary. In the majority of cases, all that is done is to lay the eggs in a favourable spot, where the larva, at its own risk and peril, can find bed and breakfast. With such rustic ideas upon the upbringing of the offspring, talents are superfluous. Lycurgus banished the arts from his republic on the ground that they were enervating. In like manner the higher inspirations of instinct have no home among insects reared in the Spartan fashion. The mother scorns the sweet task of the nurse; and the psychic prerogatives, which are the best of all, diminish and disappear, so true is it that, with animals as with ourselves, the family is a source of perfection.

While the Hymenopteron, so extremely thoughtful of her progeny, fills us with wonder, the others, which abandon theirs to the accidents of good luck or bad, must seem to us, by comparison, of little interest. These others form almost the whole of the entomological race; at least, among the fauna of our country-sides, there is, to my knowledge, only one other example of insects preparing board and lodging for their family, as do the gatherers of honey and the buriers of well-filled game-bags. [[vii]]

And, strange to say, these insects vying in maternal solicitude with the flower-despoiling tribe of Bees are none other than the Dung-beetles, the dealers in ordure, the scavengers of the cattle-fouled meadows. We must pass from the scented blossoms of our flower-beds to the Mule-dung of our high-roads to find a second instance of devoted mothers and lofty instincts. Nature abounds in these antitheses. What are our ugliness or beauty, our cleanliness or dirt to her? Out of filth, she creates the flower; from a little manure, she extracts the thrice-blessed grain of wheat.

Notwithstanding their disgusting occupation, the Dung-beetles are of a very respectable standing. Their size, which is generally imposing; their severe and immaculately glossy attire; their portly bodies, thickset and compact; the quaint ornamentation of brow or thorax: all combined make them cut an excellent figure in the collector’s boxes, especially when to our home species, oftenest of an ebon black, we add a few tropical varieties, a-glitter with gleams of gold and flashes of burnished copper.

They are the sedulous attendants of our herds, for which reason several of them are faintly redolent of benzoic acid, the aromatic of the Sheep-folds. Their pastoral habits have impressed the nomenclators, too often, alas, careless of euphony, who this time have changed their tune and headed their descriptions with such names as Melibœus, Tityrus, Amyntas, Corydon, Mopsus and Alexis. We find here the whole series of bucolic appellations made famous by the poets of antiquity. Virgil’s eclogues have lent their vocabulary for the Dung-beetles’ glorification. We should have to go back to the Butterflies with their dainty graces to find an equally [[viii]]poetic nomenclature. In their case the epic names of the Iliad ring out, borrowed from the camps of Greek and Trojan and perhaps too magnificently bellicose for those peaceable winged flowers whose habits in no wise recall the martial deeds of an Ajax or an Achilles. Much better-imagined is the bucolic title given to the Dung-beetles: it tells us the insect’s chief characteristic, its predilection for pasture-lands.

The dung-manipulators have as head of their line the Sacred Beetle or Scarab, whose strange behaviour had already attracted the attention of the fellah in the valley of the Nile, some thousand years before the Christian era. As he watered his patch of onions in the spring, the Egyptian peasant would see from time to time a fat black insect pass close by, hurriedly trundling a ball of Camel-dung backwards. He would watch the queer rolling thing in amazement, even as the Provençal peasant watches it to this day.

No one fails to be surprised when he first finds himself in the presence of the Scarab, who, with his head down and his long hind-legs in the air, pushes with might and main his huge pill, the source of so many awkward tumbles. Undoubtedly the simple fellah, on beholding this spectacle, wondered what that ball could be, what object the black creature could have in rolling it along with such vigour. The peasant of to-day asks himself the same question.

In the days of the Rameses and Thothmes, superstition had something to say in the matter; men saw in the rolling sphere an image of the world performing its daily revolution; and the Scarab received divine honours: in memory of his ancient glory, he continues the Sacred Beetle of the modern naturalists. [[ix]]

It is six or seven thousand years since the curious pill-maker first got himself talked about: are his habits thoroughly familiar to us yet? Do we know the exact use for which he intends his ball, do we know how he rears his family? Not at all. The most authoritative works perpetuate the grossest errors where he is concerned.

Ancient Egypt used to say that the Scarab rolls his ball from east to west, the direction in which the world turns. He next buries it underground for twenty-eight days, the period of a lunary revolution. This four weeks’ incubation quickens the pill-maker’s progeny. On the twenty-ninth day, which the insect knows to be that of the conjunction of the sun and moon and of the birth of the world, he goes back to his buried ball; he digs it up, opens it and throws it into the Nile. That completes the cycle. Immersion in the sacred waters causes a Scarab to emerge from the ball.

Let us not laugh overmuch at these Pharaonic stories: they contain a modicum of truth mingled with the fantastic theories of astrology. Moreover, a good deal of the laughter would recoil upon our own science, for the fundamental error of regarding as the Scarab’s cradle the ball which we see rolling across the fields still lingers in our text-books. All the authors who write about the Sacred Beetle repeat it; the tradition has come down to us intact from the far-off days when the Pyramids were built.

It is a good thing from time to time to wield the hatchet in the overgrown thicket of tradition; it is well to shake off the yoke of accepted ideas. It is possible that, cleansed of its obscuring dross, truth may at last shine forth resplendent, far greater and more wonderful than the things which we were taught. I have sometimes harboured [[x]]these rash doubts; and I have no reason to regret it, notably in the case of the Scarab. To-day I know the sacred pill-roller’s story thoroughly; and the reader shall see how much more marvellous it is than the tales handed down to us by the old Egyptians.

The early chapters of my investigations into the nature of instinct[1] have already proved, in the most categorical fashion, that the round pellets rolled hither and thither along the ground by the insect do not and indeed cannot contain germs. They are not habitations for the egg and the grub; they are provisions which the Sacred Beetle hurriedly removes from the madding crowd in order to bury them and consume them at leisure in a subterranean dining-room.

Nearly forty years have elapsed since I used eagerly to collect the materials to support my iconoclastic assertions on the Plateau des Angles, near Avignon; and nothing has happened to invalidate my statements; far from it: everything has corroborated them. The incontestable proof came at last when I obtained the Scarab’s nest, a genuine nest this time, gathered in such quantities as I wished and in some cases even shaped before my eyes.

I have described my former vain attempts to find the larva’s abode; I have described the pitiful failure of my efforts at rearing under cover; and perhaps the reader commiserated my woes when he saw me on the outskirts of the town stealthily and ingloriously gathering in a paper bag the donation dropped by a passing Mule for [[xi]]my charges. Certainly, as things were, my task was no easy one. My boarders, who were great consumers, or more correctly speaking great wasters, used to beguile the tedium of captivity by indulging in art for art’s sake in the glad sunshine. Pill followed on pill, all beautifully rounded, to be abandoned unused after a few exercises in rolling. The heap of provisions, which I had so painfully acquired in the friendly shadow of the gloaming, was squandered with disheartening rapidity; and there came a time when the daily bread failed. Moreover, the stringy manna falling from the Horse and the Mule is hardly suited to the mother’s work, as I learned afterwards. Something more homogeneous, more plastic is needed; and this only the Sheep’s somewhat laxer bowels are able to supply.

In short, though my earlier studies taught me all about the Scarab’s public manners, for several reasons they told me nothing of his private habits. The nest-building problem remained as obscure as ever. Its solution demands a good deal more than the straitened resources of a town and the scientific equipment of a laboratory. It requires prolonged residence in the country; it requires the proximity of flocks and herds in the bright sunshine. Given these conditions, success is assured, provided that one have zeal and perseverance; and these conditions I find to perfection in my quiet village.

Provisions, my great difficulty in the old days, are now to be had for the asking. Close to my house, Mules pass along the high-road, on their way to the fields and back again; morning and evening, flocks of Sheep go by, making for the pasture or the fold; not five yards from my door, my neighbour’s Goat is tethered: I can hear her bleating as she nibbles away at her ring of grass. [[xii]]Moreover, should food be scarce in my immediate vicinity, there are always youthful purveyors who, lured by visions of lollipops, are ready to scour the country to collect victuals for my Beetles.

They arrive, not one but a dozen, bringing their contributions in the queerest of receptacles. In this novel procession of gift-bearers, any concave thing that chances to be handy is employed: the crown of an old hat, a broken tile, a bit of stove-pipe, the bottom of a spinning-top, a fragment of a basket, an old shoe hardened into a sort of boat, at a pinch the collector’s own cap.

‘It’s prime stuff this time,’ their shining eyes seem to proclaim. ‘It’s something extra special.’

The goods are duly approved and paid for on the spot, as agreed. To close the transaction in a fitting manner, I take the victuallers to the cages and show them the Beetle rolling his pill. They gaze in wonder at the funny creature that looks as if it were playing with its ball; they laugh at its tumbles and scream with delight at its clumsy struggles when it comes to grief and lies on its back kicking. A charming sight, especially when the lollipops bulging in the youngsters’ cheeks are just beginning to melt deliciously. Thus the zeal of my little collaborators is kept alive. There is no fear of my boarders starving: their larder will be lavishly supplied.

Who are these boarders? Well, first and foremost the Sacred Beetle, the chief subject of my present investigations. Sérignan’s long screen of hills might well mark his extreme northern boundary. Here ends the Mediterranean flora, whose last ligneous representatives are the arboraceous heather and the arbutus-tree; and here, in all probability, the mighty pill-maker, a passionate lover of the sun, terminates his arctic explorations. He [[xiii]]abounds on the hot slopes facing the south and in the narrow belt of plain sheltered by that powerful reflector. According to all appearances, the elegant Gallic Bolboceras and the stalwart Spanish Copris likewise stop at this line; for both are as sensitive to cold as he. To these curious Dung-beetles, whose private habits are so little known, let us add the Gymnopleuri, the Minotaur, the Geotrupes, the Onthophagi. They are all welcomed in my cages, for all, I am convinced beforehand, have surprises in store for us in the details of their underground business.

My cages have a capacity of about a cubic yard. Except for the front, which is of wire gauze, the whole is made of wood. This keeps out any excessive rain, the effect of which would be to turn the layer of earth in my open-air appliances into mud. Over-great moisture would be fatal to the prisoners, who cannot, in their straitened artificial demesne, act as they do when at liberty and prolong their digging indefinitely until they come upon a medium suitable to their operations. They want soil which is porous and not too dry, though in no danger of ever becoming muddy. The earth in the cages therefore is of a sandy character and, after being sifted, is slightly moistened and flattened down just enough to prevent any landslips in the future galleries. Its depth is barely ten or eleven inches, which is insufficient in certain cases; but those of the inmates who have a fancy for deep galleries, like the Geotrupes for instance, are well able to make up horizontally for what is denied them perpendicularly.

The trellised front has a south aspect and allows the sun’s rays to penetrate right into the dwelling. The opposite side, which faces north, consists of two shutters one above the other. They are movable and are kept [[xiv]]in place by hooks or bolts. The top one opens for food to be distributed and for the cleaning of the cage; it is the kitchen-door for everyday use. It is also the entrance-gate for any new captives whom I succeed in bagging. The bottom shutter, which keeps the layer of earth in position, is opened only on great occasions, when we want to surprise the insect in its home life and to ascertain the condition of the progress underground. Then the bolts are drawn; the board, which is on hinges, falls; and a vertical section of the soil is laid bare, giving us an excellent opportunity of studying the Dung-beetles’ work. Our examination is made with the point of a knife and has to be conducted with the utmost care. In this way we get with precision and without difficulty industrial details which could not always be obtained by laborious digging in the open fields.

Nevertheless, outdoor investigations are indispensable and often yield far more important results than anything derived from home rearing; for, though some Dung-beetles are indifferent to captivity and work in the cage with their customary vigour, others, who are of a more nervous temperament or perhaps more cautious, distrust my boarded palaces and are extremely reluctant to surrender their secrets. It is only once in a way that they fall victims to my assiduous wooing. Besides, if my menagerie is to be run properly, I must know something of what is happening outside, were it only to find out the right time of year for my various projects. It is absolutely essential therefore that our study of the insect in captivity should be amply supplemented by observations of its life and habits in the wild state.

Here an assistant would be very useful to me, some one with leisure, with a seeing eye and a simple heart, [[xv]]whose curiosity would be as unaffected as my own. This helper I have: such an one indeed as I have never had before or since. He is a young shepherd, a friend of the family. He has read a little and has a keen desire for knowledge, so he is not frightened by the terms Scarabæus, Geotrupes, Copris or Onthophagus when I name the insects which he has dug up the day before and kept for me in a box.

At early dawn in the dog-days, when my insects are busy with their nest-building, you may see him in the meadows. When night falls and the heat begins to lessen, he is still there; and all day long, till far into the night, he passes to and fro among the pill-rollers, who are attracted from every quarter by the reek of the victuals strewn by his Sheep. Well-posted in the various points of my entomological problems, he watches events and keeps me informed. He awaits his opportunity; he inspects the grass. With his knife he lays bare the subterranean cell which is betrayed by its little mound of earth; he scrapes, digs and finds; and it all constitutes a glorious change from his vague pastoral musings.

Ah, what splendid mornings we spend together, in the cool of the day, seeking the nest of the Scarab or the Copris! Old Sultan is there, seated on some knoll or other and keeping an autocratic eye upon the fleecy rabble. Nothing, not even the crust which a friend holds out to him, distracts his attention from his exalted functions. Certainly he is not much to look at, with his tangled black coat, soiled with the thousands of seeds which have caught in it. He is not a handsome Dog, but what a lot of sense there is in his shaggy head, what a talent for knowing exactly what is permitted and what forbidden, for perceiving the absence of some heedless [[xvi]]one forgotten behind a dip in the ground! Upon my word, one would think that he knew the number of Sheep confided to his care, his Sheep, though never a bone of them comes his way! He has counted them from the top of his knoll. One is missing. Sultan rushes off. Here he comes, bringing the straggler back to the flock. Clever Dog! I admire your skill in arithmetic, though I fail to understand how your crude brain ever acquired it. Yes, old fellow, we can rely on you; the two of us, your master and I, can hunt the Dung-beetle at our ease and disappear in the copsewood; not one of your charges will go astray, not one will nibble at the neighbouring vines.

It was in this way that I worked, at early morn, before the sun grew too hot, in partnership with the young shepherd and our common friend Sultan, though at times I was alone, myself sole pastor of the seventy bleating Sheep. And so the materials were gathered for this history of the Sacred Beetle and his rivals. [[xvii]]

[1] Chapters [I]. and [II]. of the present volume, forming the first two chapters of Vol. I. of the Souvenirs entomologiques. The remaining chapters on the Sacred Beetle appeared, in the original, in Vol. V. of that work, for which volume the above was written as a preface.—Translator’s Note. [↑]

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Translator’s Note

This is the first of the four volumes containing Fabre’s essays on Beetles, the order of insects to which, if we judge by his output, he devoted the longest study. It will be followed in due course by The Glow-worm and Other Beetles, The Life of the Weevil, and More Beetles. These three, however, will be issued, not in immediate succession, but turn by turn with books upon other insects; for the Souvenirs entomologiques, from which all or nearly all this material is taken, are still far from being exhausted.

Of the eighteen chapters that make up the present volume, some have appeared, either complete or in a more or less abbreviated form, in various interesting illustrated miscellanies published independently of the Collected Edition. Part of the Author’s Preface and the chapters entitled ‘The Sacred Beetle’ and ‘The Sacred Beetle in Captivity’ will be found in Insect Life, prepared for Messrs. Macmillan and Co. by the author of Mademoiselle Mori. Similarly, the next three chapters on the Sacred Beetle, the two treating of the Spanish Copris, the chapter on the Onthophagi and Oniticelli, and the first two chapters on the Geotrupes form part of The Life and Love of the Insect, translated by myself for Messrs. Adam and Charles Black and published in America by the Macmillan Co. Lastly, The Sisyphus: the Instinct of Paternity occurs in Mr. Fisher Unwin’s Social Life in the Insect World, translated by Mr. Bernard Miall and [[xviii]]published in America by the Century Co. These chapters are all included in the Collected Edition by arrangement with the publishers named.

It remains for me (I grieve to say, for the last time) to acknowledge my debt to the late Miss Frances Rodwell, my very capable assistant, who did so much to assist me in preparing this and most of the previous volumes. Her too early death, in the winter of this year, was an occasion of sorrow, and a great loss to many besides myself.

Alexander Teixeira de Mattos.

Chelsea, 26th April 1919. [[xix]]

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Contents

PAGE

[AUTHOR’S PREFACE] v

[TRANSLATOR’S NOTE] xvii

CHAPTER I

[THE SACRED BEETLE] 1

CHAPTER II

[THE SACRED BEETLE IN CAPTIVITY] 29

CHAPTER III

[THE SACRED BEETLE: THE BALL] 42

CHAPTER IV

[THE SACRED BEETLE: THE PEAR] 56

CHAPTER V

[THE SACRED BEETLE: THE MODELLING] 73 [[xx]]

CHAPTER VI

[THE SACRED BEETLE: THE LARVA] 83

CHAPTER VII

[THE SACRED BEETLE: THE NYMPH; THE RELEASE] 96

CHAPTER VIII

[THE BROAD-NECKED SCARAB; THE GYMNOPLEURI] 112

CHAPTER IX

[THE SPANISH COPRIS: THE LAYING OF THE EGGS] 127

CHAPTER X

[THE SPANISH COPRIS: THE HABITS OF THE MOTHER] 149

CHAPTER XI

[ONTHOPHAGI AND ONITICELLI] 172

CHAPTER XII

[THE GEOTRUPES: THE PUBLIC HEALTH] 189 [[xxi]]

CHAPTER XIII

[THE GEOTRUPES: NEST-BUILDING] 203

CHAPTER XIV

[THE GEOTRUPES: THE LARVA] 221

CHAPTER XV

[THE SISYPHUS: THE INSTINCT OF PATERNITY] 235

CHAPTER XVI

[THE LUNARY COPRIS; THE BISON ONITIS] 248

CHAPTER XVII

[THE BULL ONTHOPHAGUS: THE CELL] 263

CHAPTER XVIII

[THE BULL ONTHOPHAGUS: THE LARVA; THE NYMPH] 280

[INDEX] 293 [[1]]

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Chapter i

THE SACRED BEETLE

It happened like this. There were five or six of us: myself, the oldest, officially their master but even more their friend and comrade; they, lads with warm hearts and joyous imaginations, overflowing with that youthful vitality which makes us so enthusiastic and so eager for knowledge. We started off one morning down a path fringed with dwarf elder and hawthorn, whose clustering blossoms were already a paradise for the Rose-chafer ecstatically drinking in their bitter perfumes. We talked as we went. We were going to see whether the Sacred Beetle had yet made his appearance on the sandy plateau of Les Angles,[1] whether he was rolling that pellet of dung in which ancient Egypt beheld an image of the world; we were going to find out whether the stream at the foot of the hill was not hiding under its mantle of duckweed young Newts with gills like tiny branches of coral; whether that pretty little fish of our rivulets, the Stickleback, had donned his wedding scarf of purple and blue; whether the newly arrived Swallow was skimming the meadows on pointed wing, chasing the Crane-flies, who scatter their eggs as they dance through the air; if the Eyed Lizard was sunning his blue-speckled [[2]]body on the threshold of a burrow dug in the sandstone; if the Laughing Gull, travelling from the sea in the wake of the legions of fish that ascend the Rhone to milt in its waters, was hovering in his hundreds over the river, ever and anon uttering his cry so like a maniac’s laughter; if … but that will do. To be brief, let us say that, like good simple folk who find pleasure in all living things, we were off to spend a morning at the most wonderful of festivals, life’s springtime awakening.

Our expectations were fulfilled. The Stickleback was dressed in his best: his scales would have paled the lustre of silver; his throat was flashing with the brightest vermilion. On the approach of the great black Horse-leech, the spines on his back and sides started up, as though worked by a spring. In the face of this resolute altitude, the bandit turns tail and slips ignominiously down among the water-weeds. The placid mollusc tribe—Planorbes, Limnæi and other Water-snails—were sucking in the air on the surface of the water. The Hydrophilus and her hideous larva, those pirates of the ponds, darted amongst them, wringing a neck or two as they passed. The stupid crowd did not seem even to notice it. But let us leave the plain and its waters and clamber up the bluff to the plateau above us. Up there, Sheep are grazing and Horses being exercised for the approaching races, while all are distributing manna to the enraptured Dung-beetles.

Here are the scavengers at work, the Beetles whose proud mission it is to purge the soil of its filth. One would never weary of admiring the variety of tools wherewith they are supplied, whether for shifting, cutting up and shaping the stercoral matter or for excavating deep burrows in which they will seclude themselves with [[3]]their booty. This equipment resembles a technical museum where every digging-implement is represented. It includes things that seem copied from those appertaining to human industry and others of so original a type that they might well serve us as models for new inventions.

The Spanish Copris carries on his forehead a powerful pointed horn, curved backwards, like the long blade of a mattock. In addition to a similar horn, the Lunary Copris has two strong spikes, curved like a ploughshare, springing from the thorax and also, between the two, a jagged protuberance which does duty as a broad rake. Bubas bubalis and B. bison, both exclusively Mediterranean species, have their forehead armed with two stout diverging horns, between which juts a horizontal dagger, supplied by the corselet. Minotaurus typhœus carries on the front of his thorax three ploughshares, which stick straight out, parallel to one another, the side ones longer than the middle one. The Bull Onthophagus has as his tool two long curved pieces that remind us of the horns of a Bull; the Cow Onthophagus, on the other hand, has a two-pronged fork standing erect on his flat head. Even the poorest have, either on their head or on their corselet, hard knobs that make implements which the patient insect can turn to good use, notwithstanding their bluntness. All are supplied with a shovel, that is to say, they have a broad, flat head with a sharp edge; all use a rake, that is to say, they collect materials with their toothed fore-legs.

As some sort of compensation for their unsavoury task, several of them give out a powerful scent of musk, while their bellies shine like polished metal. The Mimic Geotrupes has gleams of copper and gold beneath; the Stercoraceous Geotrupes has a belly of amethystine [[4]]violet. But generally their colouring is black. The Dung-beetles in gorgeous raiment, those veritable living gems, belong to the tropics. Upper Egypt can show us under its Camel-dung a Beetle rivalling the emerald’s brilliant green; Guiana, Brazil and Senegambia boast of Copres that are a metallic red, rich as copper and ruby-bright. The Dung-beetles of our climes cannot flaunt such jewellery, but they are no less remarkable for their habits.

What excitement over a single patch of Cow-dung! Never did adventurers hurrying from the four corners of the earth display such eagerness in working a Californian claim. Before the sun becomes too hot, they are there in their hundreds, large and small, of every sort, shape and size, hastening to carve themselves a slice of the common cake. There are some that labour in the open air and scrape the surface; there are others that dig themselves galleries in the thick of the heap, in search of choice veins; some work the lower stratum and bury their spoil without delay in the ground just below; others again, the smallest, keep on one side and crumble a morsel that has slipped their way during the mighty excavations of their more powerful fellows. Some, newcomers and doubtless the hungriest, consume their meal on the spot; but the greater number dream of accumulating stocks that will allow them to spend long days in affluence, down in some safe retreat. A nice, fresh patch of dung is not found just when you want it, in the barren plains overgrown with thyme; a windfall of this sort is as manna from the sky; only fortune’s favourites receive so fair a portion. Wherefore the riches of to-day are prudently hoarded for the morrow. The stercoraceous scent has carried the glad tidings half [[5]]a mile around; and all have hastened up to get a store of provisions. A few laggards are still arriving, on the wing or on foot.

Who is this that comes trotting towards the heap, fearing lest he reach it too late? His long legs move with awkward jerks, as though driven by some mechanism within his belly; his little red antennæ unfurl their fan, a sign of anxious greed. He is coming, he has come, not without sending a few banqueters sprawling. It is the Sacred Beetle, clad all in black, the biggest and most famous of our Dung-beetles. Behold him at table, beside his fellow-guests, each of whom is giving the last touches to his ball with the flat of his broad fore-legs or else enriching it with yet one more layer before retiring to enjoy the fruit of his labours in peace. Let us follow the construction of the famous ball in all its phases.

The clypeus, or shield, that is the edge of the broad, flat head, is notched with six angular teeth arranged in a semicircle. This constitutes the tool for digging and cutting up, the rake that lifts and casts aside the unnutritious vegetable fibres, goes for something better, scrapes and collects it. A choice is thus made, for these connoisseurs differentiate between one thing and another, making a rough selection when the Beetle is occupied with his own provender, but an extremely scrupulous one when it is a matter of constructing the maternal ball, which has a central cavity in which the egg will hatch. Then every scrap of fibre is conscientiously rejected and only the stercoral quintessence is gathered as the material for building the inner layer of the cell. The young larva, on issuing from the egg, thus finds in the very walls of its lodging a food of special delicacy which strengthens [[6]]its digestion and enables it afterwards to attack the coarse outer layers.

Where his own needs are concerned, the Beetle is less particular and contents himself with a very general sorting. The notched shield then does its scooping and digging, its casting aside and scraping together more or less at random. The fore-legs play a mighty part in the work. They are flat, bow-shaped, supplied with powerful nervures and armed on the outside with five strong teeth. If a vigorous effort be needed to remove an obstacle or to force a way through the thickest part of the heap, the Dung-beetle makes use of his elbows, that is to say, he flings his toothed legs to right and left and clears a semicircular space with an energetic sweep. Room once made, a different kind of work is found for these same limbs: they collect armfuls of the stuff raked together by the shield and push it under the insect’s belly, between the four hinder legs. These are formed for the turner’s trade. They are long and slender, especially the last pair, slightly bowed and finished with a very sharp claw. They are at once recognised as compasses, capable of embracing a globular body in their curved branches and of verifying and correcting its shape. Their function is, in fact, to fashion the ball.

Armful by armful, the material is heaped up under the belly, between the four legs, which, by a slight pressure, impart their own curve to it and give it a preliminary outline. Then, every now and again, the rough-hewn pill is set spinning between the four branches of the double pair of spherical compasses; it turns under the Dung-beetle’s belly until it is rolled into a perfect ball. Should the surface layer lack plasticity and threaten to peel off, should some too-stringy part refuse to yield to [[7]]the action of the lathe, the fore-legs touch up the faulty places; their broad paddles pat the ball to give consistency to the new layer and to work the recalcitrant bits into the mass.

Under a hot sun, when time presses, one stands amazed at the turner’s feverish activity. And so the work proceeds apace: what a moment ago was a tiny pellet is now a ball the size of a walnut; soon it will be the size of an apple. I have seen some gluttons manufacture a ball the size of a man’s fist. This indeed means food in the larder for days to come!

The Beetle has his provisions. The next thing is to withdraw from the fray and transport the victuals to a suitable place. Here the Scarab’s most striking characteristics begin to show themselves. Straightway he begins his journey; he clasps his sphere with his two long hind-legs, whose terminal claws, planted in the mass, serve as pivots; he obtains a purchase with the middle pair of legs; and, with his toothed fore-arms, pressing in turn upon the ground, to do duty as levers, he proceeds with his load, he himself moving backwards, body bent, head down and hind-quarters in the air. The rear legs, the principal factor in the mechanism, are in continual movement backwards and forwards, shifting the claws to change the axis of rotation, to keep the load balanced and to push it along by alternate thrusts to right and left. In this way the ball finds itself touching the ground by turns with every point of its surface, a process which perfects its shape and gives an even consistency to its outer layer by means of pressure uniformly distributed.

And now to work with a will! The thing moves, it begins to roll; we shall get there, though not without [[8]]difficulty. Here is a first awkward place: the Beetle is wending his way athwart a slope and the heavy mass tends to follow the incline; the insect, however, for reasons best known to itself, prefers to cut across this natural road, a bold project which may be brought to naught by a false step or by a grain of sand that disturbs the balance of the load. The false step is made: down goes the ball to the bottom of the valley; and the insect, toppled over by the shock, is lying on its back, kicking. It is soon up again and hastens to harness itself once more to its load. The machine works better than ever. But look out, you dunderhead! Follow the dip of the valley: that will save labour and mishaps; the road is good and level; your ball will roll quite easily. Not a bit of it! The Beetle prepares once again to mount the slope that has already been his undoing. Perhaps it suits him to return to the heights. Against that I have nothing to say: the Scarab’s judgment is better than mine as to the advisability of keeping to lofty regions; he can see farther than I can in these matters. But at least take this path, which will lead you up by a gentle incline! Certainly not! Let him find himself near some very steep slope, impossible to climb, and that is the very path which the obstinate fellow will choose. Now begins a Sisyphean labour. The ball, that enormous burden, is painfully hoisted, step by step, with infinite precautions, to a certain height, always backwards. We wonder by what miracle of statics a mass of this size can be kept upon the slope. Oh! An ill-advised movement frustrates all this toil: the ball rolls down, dragging the Beetle with it. Once more the heights are scaled and another fall is the sequel. The attempt is renewed, with greater skill this time at the difficult points; a wretched grass-root, [[9]]the cause of the previous falls, is carefully got over. We are almost there; but steady now, steady! It is a dangerous ascent and the merest trifle may yet ruin everything. For see, a leg slips on a smooth bit of gravel! Down come ball and Beetle, all mixed up together. And the insect begins over again, with indefatigable obstinacy. Ten times, twenty times, he will attempt the hopeless ascent, until his persistence vanquishes all obstacles, or until, wisely recognizing the futility of his efforts, he adopts the level road.

The Scarab does not always push his precious ball alone: sometimes he takes a partner; or, to be accurate, the partner takes him. This is the way in which things usually happen: once his ball is ready, a Dung-beetle issues from the crowd and leaves the workyard, pushing his prize backwards. A neighbour, a newcomer, whose own task is hardly begun, abruptly drops his work and runs to the moving ball, to lend a hand to the lucky owner, who seems to accept the proffered aid kindly. Henceforth the two work in partnership. Each does his best to push the pellet to a place of safety. Was a compact really concluded in the workyard, a tacit agreement to share the cake between them? While one was kneading and moulding the ball, was the other tapping rich veins whence to extract choice materials and add them to the common store? I have never observed any such collaboration; I have always seen each Dung-beetle occupied solely with his own affairs in the works. The last-comer, therefore, has no acquired rights.

Can it then be a partnership between the two sexes, a couple intending to set up house? I thought so for a time. The two Beetles, one before, one behind, pushing the heavy ball with equal fervour, reminded me of a [[10]]song which the hurdy-gurdies used to grind out some years ago:

Pour monter notre ménage, hélas! comment ferons-nous?

Toi devant et moi derrière, nous pousserons le tonneau.[2]

The evidence of the scalpel compelled me to abandon my belief in this domestic idyll. There is no outward difference between the two sexes in the Scarabæi. I therefore dissected the pair of Dung-beetles engaged in trundling one and the same ball; and they very often proved to be of the same sex.

Neither community of family nor community of labour! Then what is the motive for this apparent partnership? It is purely and simply an attempt at robbery. The zealous fellow-worker, on the false plea of lending a helping hand, cherishes a plan to purloin the ball at the first opportunity. To make one’s own ball at the heap means hard work and patience; to steal one ready-made, or at least to foist one’s self as a guest, is a much easier matter. Should the owner’s vigilance slacken, you can run away with his property; should you be too closely watched, you can sit down to table uninvited, pleading services rendered. It is ‘Heads I win, tails you lose’ in these tactics, so that pillage is practised as one of the most lucrative of trades. Some go to work craftily, in the way which I have described: they come to the aid of a comrade who has not the least need of them and hide the most barefaced greed under the cloak of charitable assistance. Others, bolder perhaps, more confident in their strength, go straight to their goal and commit robbery with violence. [[11]]

Scenes are constantly happening such as this: a Scarab goes off, peacefully, by himself, rolling his ball, his lawful property, acquired by conscientious work. Another comes flying up, I know not whence, drops down heavily, folds his dingy wings under their cases and, with the back of his toothed fore-arms, knocks over the owner, who is powerless to ward off the attack in his awkward position, harnessed as he is to his property. While the victim struggles to his feet, the other perches himself atop the ball, the best position from which to repel an assailant. With his fore-arms crossed over his breast, ready to hit back, he awaits events. The dispossessed one moves round the ball, seeking a favourable spot at which to make the assault; the usurper spins round on the roof of the citadel, facing his opponent all the time. If the latter raise himself in order to scale the wall, the robber gives him a blow that stretches him on his back. Safe at the top of his fortress, the besieged Beetle could foil his adversary’s attempts indefinitely if the latter did not change his tactics. He turns sapper so as to reduce the citadel with the garrison. The ball, shaken from below, totters and begins rolling, carrying with it the thieving Dung-beetle, who makes violent efforts to maintain his position on the top. This he succeeds in doing—though not invariably—thanks to hurried gymnastic feats which land him higher on the ball and make up for the ground which he loses by its rotation. Should a false movement bring him to earth, the chances become equal and the struggle turns into a wrestling-match. Robber and robbed grapple with each other, breast to breast. Their legs lock and unlock, their joints intertwine, their horny armour clashes and grates with the rasping sound of metal under the file. Then the one who succeeds in [[12]]throwing his opponent and releasing himself scrambles to the top of the ball and there takes up his position. The siege is renewed, now by the robber, now by the robbed, as the chances of the hand-to-hand conflict may decree. The former, a brawny desperado, no novice at the game, often has the best of the fight. Then, after two or three unsuccessful attempts, the defeated Beetle wearies and returns philosophically to the heap, to make himself a new pellet. As for the other, with all fear of a surprise attack at an end, he harnesses himself to the conquered ball and pushes it whither he pleases. I have sometimes seen a third thief appear upon the scene and rob the robber. Nor can I honestly say that I was sorry.

I ask myself in vain what Proudhon[3] introduced into Scarabæan morality the daring paradox that ‘property means plunder,’ or what diplomatist taught the Dung-beetle the savage maxim that ‘might is right.’ I have no data that would enable me to trace the origin of these spoliations, which have become a custom, of this abuse of strength to capture a lump of ordure. All that I can say is that theft is a general practice among the Scarabs. These dung-rollers rob one another with a calm effrontery which, to my knowledge, is without a parallel. I leave it to future observers to elucidate this curious problem in animal psychology and I go back to the two partners rolling their ball in concert.

But first let me dispel a current error in the text-books. I find in M. Émile Blanchard’s[4] magnificent work, [[13]]Métamorphoses, mœurs et instincts des insectes, the following passage:

‘Sometimes our insect is stopped by an insurmountable obstacle; the ball has fallen into a hole. At such moments the Ateuchus[5] gives evidence of a really astonishing grasp of the situation as well as of a system of ready communication between individuals of the same species which is even more remarkable. Recognizing the impossibility of coaxing the ball out of the hole, the Ateuchus seems to abandon it and flies away. If you are sufficiently endowed with that great and noble virtue called patience, stay by the forsaken ball: after a while, the Ateuchus will return to the same spot and will not return alone; he will be accompanied by two, three, four or five companions, who will all alight at the place indicated and will combine their efforts to raise the load. The Ateuchus has been to fetch reinforcements; and this explains why it is such a common sight, in the dry fields, to see several Ateuchi joining in the removal of a single ball.’

Lastly, I read in Illiger’s[6] Entomological Magazine:

‘A Gymnopleurus pilularius,[7] while constructing the ball of dung destined to contain her eggs, let it roll into a hole, whence she strove for a long time to extract it [[14]]unaided. Finding that she was wasting her time in vain efforts, she ran to a neighbouring heap of manure to fetch three individuals of her own species, who, uniting their strength to hers, succeeded in withdrawing the ball from the cavity into which it had fallen and then returned to their manure to continue their work.’

I crave a thousand pardons of my illustrious master, M. Blanchard, but things certainly do not happen as he says. To begin with, the two accounts are so much alike that they must have had a common origin. Illiger, on the strength of observations not continuous enough to deserve blind confidence, put forward the case of his Gymnopleurus; and the same story was repeated about the Scarabæi because it is, in fact, quite usual to see two of these insects occupied together either in rolling a ball or in getting it out of a troublesome place. But this cooperation in no way proves that the Dung-beetle who found himself in difficulties went to requisition the aid of his mates. I have had no small measure of the patience recommended by M. Blanchard; I have lived laborious days in close intimacy, if I may say so, with the Sacred Beetle; I have done everything that I could think of in order to enter as thoroughly as possible into his ways and habits and to study them from life; and I have never seen anything that suggested either nearly or remotely the idea of companions summoned to lend assistance. As I shall presently relate, I have subjected the Dung-beetle to far more serious trials than that of getting his ball into a hole; I have confronted him with much graver difficulties than that of mounting a slope, which is sheer sport to the obstinate Sisyphus, who seems to delight in the rough gymnastics involved in climbing steep places, [[15]]as if the ball thereby grew firmer and accordingly increased in value; I have created artificial situations in which the insect had the uttermost need of help; and never did my eyes detect any evidence of friendly services rendered by comrade to comrade. I have seen Beetles robbed and Beetles robbing and nothing more. If a number of them were gathered around the same pill, it meant that a battle was taking place. My humble opinion, therefore, is that the incident of a number of Scarabæi collected around the same ball with thieving intentions has given rise to these stories of comrades called in to lend a hand. Imperfect observations are responsible for this transformation of the bold highwayman into a helpful companion who has left his work to do another a friendly turn.

It is no light matter to attribute to an insect a really astonishing grasp of a situation, combined with an even more amazing power of communication between individuals of the same species. Such an admission involves more than one imagines. That is why I insist on my point. What! Are we to believe that a Beetle in distress will conceive the idea of going in quest of help? We are to imagine him flying off and scouring the country to find fellow-workers on some patch of dung; when he has found them, we are to suppose that he addresses them, in a sort of pantomime, by gestures with his antennæ more particularly, in some such words as these:

‘I say, you fellows, my load’s upset in a hole over there; come and help me get it out. I’ll do as much for you one day!’

And we are to believe that his comrades understand! And, more incredible still, that they straightway leave their work, the pellet which they have just begun, the [[16]]beloved pill exposed to the cupidity of others and certain to be filched in their absence, and go to the help of the suppliant! I am profoundly incredulous of such unselfishness; and my incredulity is confirmed by what I have witnessed for years and years, not in glass-cases but in the very places where the Scarab works. Apart from its maternal solicitude, in which respect it is nearly always admirable, the insect cares for nothing but itself, unless it lives in societies, like the Hive-bees, the Ants and the rest.

But let me end this digression, which is excused by the importance of the subject. I was saying that a Sacred Beetle, in possession of a ball which he is pushing backwards, is often joined by another, who comes hurrying up to lend an assistance which is anything but disinterested, his intention being to rob his companion if the opportunity present itself. Let us call the two workers partners, though that is not the proper name for them, seeing that the one forces himself upon the other, who probably accepts outside help only for fear of a worse evil. The meeting, by the way, is absolutely peaceful. The owner of the ball does not cease work for an instant on the arrival of the newcomer; and his uninvited assistant seems animated by the best intentions and sets to work on the spot. The way in which the two partners harness themselves differs. The proprietor occupies the chief position, the place of honour: he pushes at the rear, with his hind-legs in the air and his head down. His subordinate is in front, in the reverse posture, head up, toothed arms on the ball, long hind-legs on the ground. Between the two, the ball rolls along, one driving it before him, the other pulling it towards him.

The efforts of the couple are not always very harmonious, the more so as the assistant has his back to the road to be [[17]]traversed, while the owner’s view is impeded by the load. The result is that they are constantly having accidents, absurd tumbles, taken cheerfully and in good part: each picks himself up quickly and resumes the same position as before. On level ground this system of traction does not correspond with the dynamic force expended, through lack of precision in the combined movements: the Scarab at the back would do as well and better if left to himself. And so the helper, having given a proof of his good-will at the risk of throwing the machinery out of gear, now decides to keep still, without letting go of the precious ball, of course. He already looks upon that as his: a ball touched is a ball gained. He won’t be so silly as not to stick to it: the other might give him the slip!

So he gathers his legs flat under his belly, encrusting himself, so to speak, on the ball and becoming one with it. Henceforth, the whole concern—the ball and the Beetle clinging to its surface—is rolled along by the efforts of the lawful owner. The intruder sits tight and lies low, heedless whether the load pass over his body, whether he be at the top, bottom or side of the rolling ball. A queer sort of assistant, who gets a free ride so as to make sure of his share of the victuals!

But a steep ascent heaves in sight and gives him a fine part to play. He takes the lead now, holding up the heavy mass with his toothed arms, while his mate seeks a purchase in order to hoist the load a little higher. In this way, by a combination of well-directed efforts, the Beetle above gripping, the one below pushing, I have seen a couple mount hills which would have been too much for a single carter, however persevering. But in times of difficulty not all show the same zeal: there are some who, on awkward slopes where their assistance is most [[18]]needed, seem blissfully unaware of the trouble. While the unhappy Sisyphus exhausts himself in attempts to get over the bad part, the other quietly leaves him to it: imbedded in the ball, he rolls down with it if it comes to grief and is hoisted up with it when they start afresh.

I have often tried the following experiment on the two partners in order to judge their inventive faculties when placed in a serious predicament. Suppose them to be on level ground, number two seated motionless on the ball, number one busy pushing. Without disturbing the latter, I nail the ball to the ground with a long, strong pin. It stops suddenly. The Beetle, unaware of my perfidy, doubtless believes that some natural obstacle, a rut, a tuft of couch-grass, a pebble, bars the way. He redoubles his efforts, struggles his hardest; nothing happens.

‘What can the matter be? Let’s go and see.’

The Beetle walks two or three times round his pellet. Discovering nothing to account for its immobility, he returns to the rear and starts pushing again. The ball remains stationary.

‘Let’s look up above.’

The Beetle goes up, to find nothing but his motionless colleague, for I had taken care to drive in the pin so deep that the head disappeared in the ball. He explores the whole upper surface and comes down again. Fresh thrusts are vigorously applied in front and at the sides, with the same absence of success. There is not a doubt about it: never before was Dung-beetle confronted with such a problem in inertia.

Now is the time, the very time, to claim assistance, which is all the easier as his mate is there, close at hand, [[19]]squatting on the summit of the ball. Will the Scarab rouse him? Will he talk to him like this:

‘What are you doing there, lazybones? Come and look at the thing: it’s broken down!’

Nothing proves that he does anything of the kind, for I see him steadily shaking the unshakable, inspecting his stationary machine on every side, while all this time his companion sits resting. At long last, however, the latter becomes aware that something unusual is happening; he is apprised of it by his mate’s restless tramping and by the immobility of the ball. He comes down, therefore, and in his turn examines the machine. Double harness does no better than single harness. This is beginning to look serious. The little fans of the Beetles’ antennæ open and shut, open again, betraying by their agitation acute anxiety. Then a stroke of genius ends the perplexity:

‘Who knows what’s underneath?’

They now start exploring below the ball; and a little digging soon reveals the presence of the pin. They recognize at once that the trouble is there.

If I had had a voice in their deliberations, I should have said:

‘We must make a hole in the ball and pull out that skewer which is holding it down.’

This most elementary of all proceedings and one so easy to such expert diggers was not adopted, was not even tried. The Dung-beetle was shrewder than man. The two colleagues, one on this side, one on that, slip under the ball, which begins to slide up the pin, getting higher and higher in proportion as the living wedges make their way underneath. The clever operation is made possible by the softness of the material, which gives [[20]]easily and makes a channel under the head of the immovable stake. Soon the pellet is suspended at a height equal to the thickness of the Scarabs’ bodies. The rest is not such plain sailing. The Dung-beetles, who at first were lying flat, rise gradually to their feet, still pushing with their backs. The work becomes harder and harder as the legs, in straightening out, lose their strength; but none the less they do it. Then comes a time when they can no longer push with their backs, the limit of their height having been reached. A last resource remains, but one much less favourable to the development of motive power. This is for the insect to adopt one or other of its postures when harnessed to the ball, head down or up, and to push with its hind- or fore-legs, as the case may be. Finally the ball drops to the ground, unless we have used too long a pin. The gash made by our stake is repaired, more or less, and the carting of the precious pellet is at once resumed.

But, should the pin really be too long, then the ball, which remains firmly fixed, ends by being suspended at a height above that of the insect’s full stature. In that case, after vain evolutions around the unconquerable greased pole, the Dung-beetles throw up the sponge, unless we are sufficiently kind-hearted to finish the work ourselves and restore their treasure to them. Or again we can help them by raising the floor with a small flat stone, a pedestal from the top of which it is possible for the Beetle to continue his labours. Its use does not appear to be immediately understood, for neither of the two is in any hurry to take advantage of it. Nevertheless, by accident or design, one or other at last finds himself on the stone. Oh, joy! As he passed, he felt the ball touch his back. At that contact, courage returns; and [[21]]his efforts begin once more. Standing on his helpful platform, the Scarab stretches his joints, rounds his shoulders, as one might say, and shoves the pellet upwards. When his shoulders no longer avail, he works with his legs, now upright, now head downwards. There is a fresh pause, accompanied by fresh signs of uneasiness, when the limit of extension is reached. Thereupon, without disturbing the creature, we place a second little stone on the top of the first. With the aid of this new step, which provides a fulcrum for its levers, the insect pursues its task. Thus adding story upon story as required, I have seen the Scarab, hoisted to the summit of a tottering pile three or four fingers’-breadth in height, persevere in his work until the ball was completely detached.

Had he some vague consciousness of the service performed by the gradual raising of the pedestal? I venture to doubt it, though he cleverly took advantage of my platform of little stones. As a matter of fact, if the very elementary idea of using a higher support in order to reach something placed above one’s grasp were not beyond the Beetle’s comprehension, how is it that, when there are two of them, neither thinks of lending the other his back so as to raise him by that much and make it possible for him to go on working? If one helped the other in this way, they could reach twice as high. They are very far, however, from any such cooperation. Each pushes the ball, with all his might, I admit, but he pushes as if he were alone and seems to have no notion of the happy result that would follow a combined effort. In this instance, when the ball is nailed to the ground by a pin, they do exactly what they do in corresponding circumstances, as, for example, when the load is brought [[22]]to a standstill by some obstacle, caught in a loop of couch-grass or transfixed by some spiky bit of stalk that has run into the soft, rolling mass. I produced artificially a stoppage which is not really very different from those occurring naturally when the ball is being rolled amid the thousand and one irregularities of the ground; and the Beetle behaves, in my experimental tests, as he would have behaved in any other circumstances in which I had no part. He uses his back as a wedge and a lever and pushes with his feet, without introducing anything new into his methods, even when he has a companion and can avail himself of his assistance.

When he is all alone in face of the difficulty, when he has no assistant, his dynamic operations remain absolutely the same; and his efforts to move his transfixed ball end in success, provided that we give him the indispensable support of a platform, built up little by little. If we deny him this succour, then, no longer encouraged by the contact of his beloved ball, he loses heart and sooner or later flies away, doubtless with many regrets, and disappears. Where to? I do not know. What I do know is that he does not return with a gang of fellow-labourers whom he has begged to help him. What would he do with them, he who cannot make use of even one comrade?

But perhaps my experiment, which leaves the ball suspended at an inaccessible height and the insect with its means of action exhausted, is a little too far removed from ordinary conditions. Let us try instead a miniature pit, deep enough and steep enough to prevent the Dung-beetle, when placed at the bottom, from rolling his load up the side. These are exactly the conditions stated by Messrs. Blanchard and Illiger. Well, what happens? [[23]]When dogged but utterly fruitless efforts have convinced him of his helplessness, the Beetle takes wing and disappears. Relying upon what these learned writers said, I have waited long hours for the insect to return reinforced by a few friends. I have always waited in vain. Many a time also I have found the pellet several days later just where I left it, stuck at the top of a pin or in a hole, proving that nothing fresh had happened in my absence. A ball abandoned from necessity is a ball abandoned for good, with no attempt at salvage with the aid of others. A dexterous use of wedge and lever to set the ball rolling again is therefore, when all is said, the greatest intellectual effort which I have observed in the Sacred Beetle. To make up for what the experiment refutes, namely, an appeal for help among fellow-workers, I gladly chronicle this feat of mechanical prowess for the Dung-beetles’ greater glory.

Directing their steps at random, over sandy plains thick with thyme, over cart-ruts and steep places, the two Beetle brethren roll the ball along for some time, thus giving its substance a certain consistency which may be to their liking. While still on the road, they select a favourable spot. The rightful owner, the Beetle who throughout has kept the place of honour, behind the ball, the one in short who has done almost all the carting by himself, sets to work to dig the dining-room. Beside him is the ball, with number two clinging to it, shamming dead. Number one attacks the sand with his sharp-edged forehead and his toothed legs; he flings armfuls of it behind him; and the work of excavating proceeds apace. Soon the Beetle has disappeared from view in the half-dug cavern. Whenever he returns to the upper air with a load, he invariably glances at his ball to see if all is well. [[24]]From time to time he brings it nearer the threshold of the burrow; he feels it and seems to acquire new vigour from the contact. The other, lying demure and motionless on the ball, continues to inspire confidence. Meanwhile the underground hall grows larger and deeper; and the digger’s field of operations is now too vast for any but very occasional appearances. Now is the time. The crafty sleeper awakens and hurriedly decamps with the ball, which he pushes behind him with the speed of a pickpocket anxious not to be caught in the act. This breach of trust rouses my indignation, but the historian triumphs for the moment over the moralist and I leave him alone: I shall have time enough to intervene on the side of law and order if things threaten to turn out badly.

The thief is already some yards away. His victim comes out of the burrow, looks around and finds nothing. Doubtless an old hand himself, he knows what this means. Scent and sight soon put him on the track. He makes haste and catches up the robber; but the artful dodger, when he feels his pursuer close on his heels, promptly changes his posture, gets on his hind-legs and clasps the ball with his toothed arms, as he does when acting as an assistant.

You rogue, you! I see through your tricks: you mean to plead as an excuse that the pellet rolled down the slope and that you are only trying to stop it and bring it back home. I, however, an impartial witness, declare that the ball was quite steady at the entrance to the burrow and did not roll of its own accord. Besides, the ground is level. I declare that I saw you set the thing in motion and make off with unmistakable intentions. It was an attempt at larceny, or I’ve never seen one! [[25]]

My evidence is not admitted. The owner cheerfully accepts the other’s excuses; and the two bring the ball back to the burrow as though nothing had happened.

If the thief, however, has time to get far enough away, or if he manages to cover his trail by adroitly doubling back, the injury is irreparable. To collect provisions under a blazing sun, to cart them a long distance, to dig a comfortable banqueting-hall in the sand, and then—just when everything is ready and your appetite, whetted by exercise, lends an added charm to the approaching feast—suddenly to find yourself cheated by a crafty partner is, it must be admitted, a reverse of fortune that would dishearten most of us. The Dung-beetle does not allow himself to be cast down by this piece of ill-luck: he rubs his cheeks, spreads his antennæ, sniffs the air and flies to the nearest heap to begin all over again. I admire and envy this cast of character.

Suppose the Scarab fortunate enough to have found a loyal partner; or, better still, suppose that he has met no self-incited companion. The burrow is ready. It is a shallow cavity, about the size of one’s fist, dug in soft earth, usually in sand, and communicating with the outside by a short passage just wide enough to admit the ball. As soon as the provisions are safely stored away, the Scarab shuts himself in by stopping up the entrance to his dwelling with rubbish kept in a corner for the purpose. Once the door is closed, nothing outside betrays the existence of the banqueting-chamber. And, now, hail mirth and jollity! All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds! The table is sumptuously spread; the ceiling tempers the heat of the sun and allows only a moist and gentle warmth to penetrate; the undisturbed quiet, the darkness, the Crickets’ concert [[26]]overhead are all pleasant aids to digestion. So complete has been the illusion that I have caught myself listening at the door, expecting to hear the revellers burst into the famous snatch in Galatée:[8]

Ah! qu’il est doux de ne rien faire,

Quand tout s’agite autour de nous?[9]

Who would dare disturb the bliss of such a banquet? But the desire for knowledge is capable of all things; and I had the necessary daring. I will set down here the result of my violation of the home.

The ball by itself fills almost the whole room; the rich repast rises from floor to ceiling. A narrow passage runs between it and the walls. Here sit the banqueters, two at most, very often only one, belly to table, back to the wall. Once the seat is chosen, no one stirs; all the vital forces are absorbed by the digestive faculties. There is no fidgeting, which might mean the loss of a mouthful; no dainty toying with the food, which might cause some to be wasted. Everything has to pass through, properly and in order. To see them seated so solemnly around a ball of dung, one would think that they were conscious of their function as cleansers of the earth and that they were deliberately devoting themselves to that marvellous chemistry which out of filth brings forth the flower that delights our eyes and the Beetles’ wing-case that jewels our lawns in spring. For this supreme work which turns into living matter the refuse which neither the Horse nor the Mule can utilize, [[27]]despite the perfection of their digestive organs, the Dung-beetle must needs be specially equipped. And indeed anatomy compels us to admire the prodigious length of his coiled intestine, which slowly elaborates the materials in its manifold windings and exhausts them to the very last serviceable atom. Matter from which the ruminant’s stomach could extract nothing, yields to this powerful alembic riches that, at a mere touch, are transmuted into ebon mail in the Sacred Scarab and a breastplate of gold and rubies in other Dung-beetles.

Now this wonderful metamorphosis of ordure has to be accomplished in the shortest possible time: the public health demands it. And so the Scarab is endowed with matchless digestive powers. Once housed in the company of food, he goes on eating and digesting, day and night, until the provisions are exhausted. There is no difficulty in proving this. Open the cell to which the Dung-beetle has retired from the world. At any hour of the day, we shall find the insect seated at table and, behind it, still hanging to it, a continuous cord, roughly coiled like a pile of cables. One can easily guess, without embarrassing explanations, what this cord represents. The great ball of dung passes mouthful by mouthful through the Beetle’s digestive canals, yielding up its nutritive essences, and reappears at the opposite end spun into a cord. Well, this unbroken cord, which is always found hanging from the aperture of the draw-plate, is ample proof, without further evidence, that the digestive processes go on without ceasing. When the provisions are coming to an end, the cable unrolled is of an astounding length: it can be measured in feet. Where shall we find the like of this stomach which, to avoid any loss when life’s balance-sheet is made out, feasts for [[28]]a week or a fortnight, without stopping, on such distasteful fare?

When the whole ball has passed through the machine, the hermit comes back to the daylight, tries his luck afresh, finds another patch of dung, fashions a new ball and starts eating again. This life of pleasure lasts for a month or two, from May to June; then, with the coming of the fierce heat beloved of the Cicadæ,[10] the Sacred Beetles take up their summer quarters and bury themselves in the cool earth. They reappear with the first autumn rains, less numerous and less active than in spring, but now seemingly absorbed in the most important work of all, the future of the species. [[29]]

[1] A village in the department of the Gard, facing Avignon.—Author’s Note. [↑]

[2]

‘When you and I start housekeeping, alas, what shall we do?

You in front and I behind, we’ll shove the tub along!’

[3] Pierre Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865), the French socialist, author of Qu’est-ce que la propriété? etc.—Translator’s Note. [↑]

[4] Émile Blanchard (b. 1819), a French naturalist, best known by his works on entomology.—Translator’s Note. [↑]

[5] The Scarabæi also bear the name of Ateuchus.—Author’s Note. [↑]

[6] Johann Karl Wilhelm Illiger (1775–1813), a German naturalist, editor of a Magasin für Insektenkunde and author of Prodromus systematis mammalium et avium, etc.—Translator’s Note. [↑]

[7] Gymnopleurus pilularius is a Dung-beetle nearly related to the Sacred Beetle, but smaller. As his name suggests, he also rolls pellets of dung. The Gymnopleurus is very general, even in the north, whereas Scarabæus sacer is hardly ever found away from the shores of the Mediterranean.—Author’s Note. [↑]

[8] A light opera, with music by Victor Massé and libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré (1852).—Translator’s Note. [↑]

[9]

‘Ah, how sweet is far niente,

When round us throbs the busy world!’

[10] Cf. The Life of the Grasshopper, by J. Henri Fabre, translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chaps. i. to v.—Translator’s Note. [↑]

[[Contents]]

Chapter ii

THE SACRED BEETLE IN CAPTIVITY

If we ransack the books for information about the habits of the dung-rollers in general and the Sacred Beetle in particular, we find that modern science still clings to some of the beliefs which were current in the days of the Pharaohs. We are told that the ball which is bumped across the fields contains an egg, that it is a cradle in which the future larva is to find both board and lodging. The parents roll it over hilly country to make it nice and round; and, when jolts and jars and tumbles down steep places have shaped it properly, they bury it and abandon it to the care of that great incubator, the earth.

So rough an upbringing has always seemed to me improbable. How could a Beetle’s egg, that delicate thing, so sensitive under its soft wrapper, survive the shaking-up which it would undergo in that rolling cradle? In the germ is a spark of life which the least touch, the veriest trifle can extinguish. Are we to believe that the parents would deliberately bump it over hill and dale for hours? No, that is not the way in which things happen; a mother does not subject her offspring to the torture of a Regulus’ barrel.

However, something more than logic was needed to make a clean sweep of accepted opinion. I therefore opened some hundreds of the pellets that were being rolled [[30]]along by the Dung-beetles; I opened others which I took from holes dug before my eyes; and never once did I find either a central cell or an egg in those pellets. They were invariably rough lumps of food, fashioned in haste, with no definite internal structure, merely so much provender with which the Beetle retires to spend a few days in undisturbed gluttony. The dung-rollers covet and steal them from one another with a keenness which they would certainly not display in robbing one another of new family charges. For Sacred Beetles to go stealing eggs would be an absurdity, each of them having quite enough to do in securing the future of her own. So this point is henceforward settled beyond question: the pellets which we see the Dung-beetles rolling never contain eggs.

My first attempt to solve the knotty problem of the larva’s rearing involved the construction of a spacious vivarium, with an artificial soil of sand and a constant supply of provisions. Into this cage I put some twenty Sacred Beetles, together with Copres, Gymnopleuri and Onthophagi. No entomological experiment ever cost me so many disappointments. The difficulty was the renewing of the food supply. Now my landlord owned a stable and a Horse. I gained the confidence of his man, who at first laughed at my proposals, but soon allowed himself to be convinced by the sight of silver. Each of my insects’ breakfasts came to twenty-five centimes. I am sure that no Beetle budget ever amounted to such a sum before. Well, I can still see and I shall always see Joseph, after grooming the Horse of a morning, put his head over the garden-wall and, making a speaking-trumpet of his hand, call ‘Hi!’ to me in a whisper. I would hurry up to receive a potful of droppings. [[31]]Caution was necessary on both sides, as the sequel will show you. One day the master happened to come up just when the transfer was being made, and took it into his head that all his manure was going over the wall and that what he wanted for his cabbages went to grow my verbenas and narcissi. Vainly I tried to explain: he thought that I was being funny. Poor Joseph was scolded, called all manner of names and threatened with dismissal if it happened again. It didn’t.

I had one resource left, which was to go ignominiously along the high-road and furtively collect my captives’ daily bread in a paper bag. This I did and I am not ashamed of it. Sometimes fortune favoured me: a Donkey carrying the produce of the Château-Renard or Barbentane kitchen-gardens to the Avignon market would drop his contribution as he passed my door. The gratuity, picked up instantly, made me rich for several days. In short, by scheming, waiting, running about and playing the diplomat for a blob of dung, I managed to feed my prisoners. If a passion for one’s work and a love which nothing can discourage ensure success, my experiment ought to have succeeded. It did not succeed. After a time, my Sacred Beetles, pining for their native heath in a space too limited for their elaborate evolutions, died miserable deaths, without revealing their secrets. The Gymnopleuri and Onthophagi were not so disappointing. At the proper time I shall make use of the information which I obtained from them.

Together with my attempts at home breeding I carried on my direct investigations abroad. The results fell far short of my wishes. One day I decided that I must enlist outside help. As it happened, a merry band of [[32]]youngsters was crossing the plateau. It was a Thursday.[1] Untroubled by thoughts of school and horrid lessons, they were coming from the neighbouring village of Les Angles, with an apple in one hand and a piece of bread in the other, and wending their way to the bare hill yonder, where the bullets bury themselves harmlessly when the garrison is at rifle-practice. The object of this early morning expedition was the unearthing of a few bits of lead, worth perhaps a halfpenny the lot. The small pink blossoms of the wild geranium decked the scanty patches of grass which for a brief moment beautified this Arabia Petræa; the Wheat-ear, in his black-and-white motley, twittered as he flew from one rocky point to another; on the threshold of burrows dug at the foot of the thyme-tufts, the Crickets were filling the air with their droning symphony. And the children were rejoicing in this springtide happiness and rejoicing still more in the prospect of wealth, the halfpenny which they would receive for such bullets as they found, the halfpenny which would enable them to buy two peppermint bull’s-eyes next Sunday, two of the big ones, at a farthing apiece, from the woman at the stall outside the church.

I accost the tallest, whose sharp face gives me some hope of him; the little ones stand round, eating their apples. I explain what I want and show them the Sacred Beetle rolling his ball; I tell them that in some such ball, hidden somewhere or other underground, there is occasionally a little hollow place and in that hollow a little worm. The thing to do is to dig around at random, keeping an eye on what the Beetles are doing, and to find the ball containing the worm. Balls without [[33]]a worm don’t count. And, to tempt them with a fabulous sum which shall divert to my purposes the time hitherto devoted to a few farthings’ worth of lead, I promise to pay a franc, a shiny new twenty-sou piece, for each occupied ball. At the mention of this sum, those adorably innocent eyes open their widest. I have upset all their ideas of finance by naming this fanciful price. Then, to show that my proposal is serious, I distribute a few sous as earnest-money. I arrange to be there next week, on the same day and at the same time, and faithfully to perform my part of the bargain towards all those who have made the lucky find. After carefully posting the party in their duties, I dismiss them.

‘He means it!’ the children said, as they went away. ‘He really means it! If only we could make a franc apiece!’

And their hearts swelling with fond hopes, they clinked the sous in their hands. The flattened bullets were forgotten. I saw the children scatter over the plain and begin their search.

On the appointed day, a week later, I returned to the plateau. I was confident of success. My young helpers were sure to have spoken to their playmates of this lucrative trade in Beetle-balls and convinced the incredulous by displaying their earnest-money. And indeed I found a larger party than the first time awaiting me on the spot. They came running to meet me, but there was no burst of triumph, no shout of joy. I suspected at once that things were going badly; and my suspicions were but too well-founded. Many times, after coming out of school, they had hunted for what I had described, but they had never discovered anything like it. They [[34]]handed me a few pellets found underground with the Beetle, but these were simply masses of provisions, containing no larva. I explained matters anew and made another appointment for the following Thursday. Again the search was unsuccessful. The disheartened little hunters were now reduced to quite a small number. I made a final appeal to their sportsmanship and perseverance; but nothing came of it. And I ended by compensating the most industrious, those who had held out to the last, and cancelling the bargain. I had to conduct my own researches, which, though apparently very simple, were in reality extremely difficult.

Many years have passed since then, but even to-day I am without any definite, consistent result after all my digging and exploring, though I have made my examinations at the most likely spots and have carefully watched for favourable opportunities. I am reduced to piecing together my incomplete observations and filling up the gaps by analogy.[2] The little that I have seen, combined with my study of other Dung-beetles in captivity—Gymnopleuri, Copres and Onthophagi—is summed up in what follows.

The ball which is destined to contain the egg is not made in public, in the hurry and confusion of the dung-yard. It is a work of art and supreme patience, demanding concentration and scrupulous care, both alike impossible in the thick of the crowd. One needs solitude in [[35]]order to think out a plan of operations and set to work. So the mother digs in the sand a burrow four to eight inches deep. It is a rather spacious hall communicating with the outer world by a much narrower passage. The insect brings into it carefully selected materials, doubtless in spherical form. There must be many journeys, for towards the end of the work the contents of the cell are out of all proportion to the size of the entrance-door and could not be stored at one attempt. I remember a Spanish Copris who, at the time of my inspection, was finishing a ball as big as an orange at the far end of a burrow whose only communication with the outside was by means of a gallery into which I was just able to insert my finger. It is true that the Copres do not roll pills and do not travel long distances to fetch food home. They dig a hole immediately under the dung and drag the material backwards, armful by armful, to the bottom of their well. They have thus no difficulty in provisioning their houses; moreover, they work in security under the shelter of the manure: two conditions that promote luxurious tastes. The Dung-beetles that follow the humble trade of pill-rollers are less extravagant; and yet, if he cares to make two or three journeys, the Sacred Beetle can amass wealth of which the Spanish Copris might well be jealous.

So far, the Beetle has only raw material, lumped together anyhow. A minute sorting has to take place before anything else is done: this stuff, the purest, is for the inner layer on which the grub will feed; that other, coarser stuff is for the outer layers, which are not meant for food and serve only as a protecting shell. Then, around a central hollow which receives the egg, the materials must be arranged in successive strata, [[36]]according as they are less refined and less nutritive; the layers must possess a proper consistency and must be made to adhere to one another; last of all, the stringy parts of the outer layers, which have to protect the whole structure, must be felted together. How does the clumsy Sacred Beetle, who is so stiff in her movements, accomplish a work of this kind in complete darkness, at the bottom of a hole crammed with provisions and hardly leaving room to stir? When I consider the delicacy of the workmanship and then the rough tools of the worker—angular limbs capable of cutting into hard or even rocky soil—I think of an Elephant trying to make lace. Let whoso can explain this miracle of maternal industry; as for me, I give it up, all the more as I have not had the luck to see the artist at work. We will confine ourselves to describing her masterpiece.

The ball containing the egg is usually the size of an average apple. In the centre is an oval hollow about two-fifths of an inch in diameter. The egg is fixed at the bottom, standing perpendicularly; it is cylindrical, rounded at both ends, yellowish-white and about as large as a grain of wheat, but shorter. The inside of the niche is coated with a shiny, greenish-brown, semifluid material, a real stercoral cream, destined to form the larva’s first mouthfuls. To make this dainty food, does the mother collect the quintessence of the dung? The appearance of it tells me something different and makes me certain that it is a pap prepared in the maternal stomach. The Pigeon softens the grain in her crop and turns it into a sort of milky soup which she subsequently disgorges to her brood. To all seeming, the Dung-beetle displays the same solicitude: she half-digests choice provender and disgorges it in the form of a meat-extract [[37]]with which she lines the walls of the cavity where the egg is laid. Thus the larva, on hatching, finds an easily-digested food, which very soon strengthens its stomach and enables it to attack the underlying strata, which have not been refined in the same way. Under the semi-fluid paste is a soft, well-compressed, uniform mass, from which every stringy particle is excluded. Beyond this are the coarser layers, abounding in vegetable fibres. Finally, the outside of the ball is composed of the commonest materials, but packed and felted into a stout rind.

Manifestly we have here a progressive change of diet. On leaving the egg, the frail grub licks the dainty broth on the walls of its cell. There is not much of this, but it is strengthening and very nutritious. The pap of earliest infancy is followed by the more solid food given to the weaned nurseling, a sort of paste that stands midway between the exquisitely delicate fare at the start and the coarse provisions at the finish. There is a thick layer of it, enough to turn the infant into a sturdy youngster. But now for the strong comes strong meat: barley-bread with its husks, that is to say, natural droppings full of sharp bits of hay. Of this the larva has enough and to spare; and, when it has attained its full growth, there remains an enclosing layer. The capacity of the dwelling has increased with the growth of the occupant, fed on the very substance of the walls; the original little cell with the very thick walls is now a big cell with walls only a few millimetres in thickness; the inner layers have become larva, nymph or Beetle, according to the period. Lastly, the ball itself is a stout shell, protecting within its spacious interior the mysterious processes of the metamorphosis. [[38]]

I can go no farther, for lack of observations; my records of the birth of the Sacred Beetle stop short at the egg. I have not seen the larva, which however is known and is described in the text-books;[3] nor have I seen the perfect insect while still enclosed in its chamber in the ball, before it has had any practice in its duties as a pill-roller and excavator. And this is just what I particularly wanted to see. I should have liked to find the Dung-beetle in his native cell, recently transformed, new to all labour, so as to examine the workman’s hand before it started its work. I will tell you the reason for this wish.

Insects have at the end of each leg a sort of finger, or tarsus as it is called, consisting of a succession of delicate parts which may be compared with the joints of our fingers. They end in a hooked claw. One finger to each leg: that is the rule; and this finger, at least with the higher Beetles and notably the Dung-beetles, has five phalanges or joints. Now, by a really strange exception, the Scarabs have no tarsi on their front legs, while possessing very well-shaped ones, with five joints apiece, on the two other pairs. They are maimed, crippled: they lack, on their fore-limbs, that which in the insect very roughly represents our hand. A similar anomaly occurs in the Onitis- and Bubas-beetles, who also belong to the Dung-beetle family. Entomology has long recorded this curious fact, without being able to offer a satisfactory explanation. Is the creature born maimed, does it come into the world without fingers to its forelimbs? Or does it lose them by accident, once it is given over to its toilsome labours?

One could easily imagine this mutilation to be the result of the insect’s hard work. Poking about, digging [[39]]and raking and slicing, at one time in the gravelly soil, at another in the stringy mass of manure, do not constitute a task in which organs so delicate as the tarsi can be employed without risk. And here is an even more serious matter: when the Beetle is rolling his ball backwards, with his head down, it is with the extremities of his fore-feet that he presses against the ground. What might not happen to the insect’s feeble fingers, slender as thread, in consequence of this continual rubbing against the rough soil? They are merely useless encumbrances; one day or other they seem bound to disappear, crushed, torn off, worn out in a thousand ways. We know unfortunately that our own workmen are all too frequently injured in handling heavy tools and lifting great weights; even so might the Scarab be crippled in rolling his ball, an enormous load to him. In that case his maimed arms would be a noble testimony to his industrious life.

But straightway grave doubts begin to assail us. If these mutilations were really accidental and the result of too strenuous work, they would be the exception, not the rule. Because a workman or several workmen have had a hand caught and crushed in a machine, it does not follow that all the rest will also lose their hands. If the Scarab sometimes, or even very frequently, loses his fore-fingers in pursuing his trade as a pill-roller, there must be some at least who, more fortunate or more skilful, have preserved their tarsi. Let us then consult the actual facts. I have observed in very large numbers the various species of Scarabs that inhabit France: Scarabæus sacer, who is common in Provence; S. semipunctatus, who keeps fairly close to the sea and frequents the sandy shores of Cette, Palavas and the [[40]]Golfe Juan; lastly, S. laticollis, who is much more widely distributed than either of the others and is found up the Rhone Valley at least as far as Lyons. In addition, I have studied an African species, S. cicatricosus, picked up near Constantine. Well, in all four species, the absence of tarsi on the front legs has been an invariable fact, with not a single exception, at any rate within the range of my observations. The Scarab therefore is maimed from the start; and it is a natural peculiarity in his case, not an accident.

Besides, there is another argument in support of this statement. If the lack of fore-fingers were an accidental mutilation, due to violent exertion, there are other insects, Dung-beetles too, who habitually undertake works of excavation even more arduous than the Scarab’s, and who ought therefore, a fortiori, to be deprived of their front tarsi, since these are useless and even irksome when the leg has to serve as a powerful digging-implement. The Geotrupes, for instance, who so well deserve their name, meaning Earth-piercers, sink wells in the hard soil of the roads, among stones cemented with clay: perpendicular wells so deep that, to inspect the cell at the bottom of them, we have to make use of a stout spade; and even then we do not always succeed. Now these unrivalled miners, who easily open up long tunnels in a substance whose surface the Sacred Beetle would hardly be able to disturb, have their front tarsi intact, as if cutting through rocks were work calling for delicate tools rather than strong ones. Everything then supports the belief that, if we could see the Scarab while still a novice in his native cell, we should find him to be mutilated in just the same way as the much-travelled veteran who has worn himself out with toil. [[41]]

This absence of fingers might serve as the foundation for an argument in favour of the theories now in fashion: the struggle for life and the evolution of the species. People might say:

‘The Scarabs began by having tarsi to all their legs, in conformity with the general laws of insect structure. In one way or another, some of them lost these troublesome appendages to their front legs, they being hurtful rather than useful. Finding themselves the better for this mutilation, which made their work easier, they gained the advantage over their less-favoured fellows; they founded a family by handing down their fingerless stumps to their descendants; and the fingered insect of antiquity ended by becoming the maimed insect of our times.’

I am ready to yield to this reasoning if you will first tell me why, with similar but much harder tasks to perform, the Geotrupes has retained his tarsi. Until then we will go on believing that the first Scarab who rolled his ball, perhaps on the shore of some lake in which the Palæotherium bathed, was as innocent of front tarsi as his descendant of to-day. [[42]]

[1] The weekly holiday in the French schools.—Translator’s Note. [↑]

[2] This seems the place in which to remind the reader that the first two chapters of the present volume correspond with Chapters I. and II. of the first volume of the Souvenirs entomologiques in their original form. Chapters III. to VII. of the present volume are translations of Chapters I. to V. of the fifth volume of the Souvenirs, published many years later, at a time when Fabre had completed his study of the Sacred Beetle.—Translator’s Note. [↑]

[3] Cf. Mulsant’s Coléoptères de France: Lamellicornes.—Author’s Note. [↑]

[[Contents]]

Chapter iii

THE SACRED BEETLE: THE BALL

There is no need to return to the Sacred Beetle working in the daylight or consuming his booty underground, either alone, as usually happens, or in the company of a guest: what I have said about this in a former chapter is enough; and further observations would give no new information of special interest. There is only one point which deserves attention. This is the method of constructing the spherical pellet, consisting merely of provisions which the Beetle collects for his own use and conveys to an underground dining-room excavated at a convenient spot. My present cages, which are much better arranged than those which I had at first, enable us to watch the operation at our leisure; and this operation will furnish data which will be of the greatest value later in explaining the mysterious structure of the nest. Let us then once more watch the Sacred Beetle as he busies himself with his victuals.

I supply fresh provisions, derived from the Mule or, better, the Sheep. The scent of the heap carries the news far and wide. The Beetles hasten up from every direction, extending and waving the russet feathers of their antennæ, a sign of acute excitement. Those who were dozing underground split the sandy ceiling and sally forth from their cellars. They are now all at the banquet, [[43]]not without quarrels among neighbours, who fight for the best bits and knock one another over with sudden back-handers from their broad fore-legs. Things calm down; and, without further disputes for the moment, each gets all that he can out of the spot where he happens to be.

The foundation of the structure is, as a rule, a bit that is almost round of itself. This is the kernel which, enlarged by successive layers, will become the ultimate ball, the size of an apricot. Having tested it and found it suitable, the owner leaves it as it is; or, at other times, he may clean it a little, scraping the outside, which is rough with bits of sand. It is now a question of constructing the ball upon this foundation. The tools are the six-toothed rake of the semicircular shield and the broad shovels of the fore-legs, which are likewise armed on the outer edge with strong teeth, five in number.

Without for a moment letting go of the kernel, which is held in his four hind-legs, more particularly those of the third, the longest pair, the Beetle turns round slowly from side to side on the top of his embryo pellet and selects from the heap around him the materials for increasing its size. His sharp-edged forehead peels, cuts, digs and rakes; his fore-legs work in unison, gathering and drawing up an armful which is at once placed upon the central mass and patted down. A few vigorous applications of the toothed shovels press the new layer into position. And so, with armful after armful carefully added on top, beneath and at the sides, the original pill grows into a big ball.

While working, the builder never leaves the dome of his edifice: he revolves on his own axis, if he wants to give his attention to any lateral part; to shape the lower [[44]]portion, he bends down to the point where it touches the ground; but from beginning to end the sphere never moves on its base and the Beetle never relaxes his hold.

To obtain a perfectly round form, we need the potter’s wheel, whose rotation makes up for our want of skill; to enlarge his snowball and make it into the enormous sphere which he will end by being unable to move, the schoolboy rolls it in the snow: the rolling gives it the regularity which the direct work of the hands, guided by an inexperienced eye, would not. More dexterous than we, the Sacred Beetle can dispense with either rolling or rotation; he moulds his ball by means of superadded layers, without shifting its place and without even descending for an instant from the top of his dome to view the whole structure from the requisite distance. The compasses of his bow-legs, a living pair of callipers which measure and check the curve, are sufficient for his purpose.

It is only with extreme caution, however, that I introduce these callipers, as I am perfectly convinced, by a host of facts, that instinct has no need of special tools. If further proof were wanted, here it is. The male Scarab’s hind-legs are perceptibly bowed; the female’s, on the contrary, are almost straight, though she is much the cleverer and is able, as we shall see presently, to produce masterpieces whose exquisite form far surpasses that of a monotonous sphere.

If the curved compasses play but a secondary part in the matter and perhaps no part at all, what is the guiding principle of this sphericity? If one merely took into consideration the insect’s organism and the circumstances in which the work is done, I see absolutely none. We must go back farther, we must go back to the innate genius, the instinct that guides the tool. The Scarab [[45]]has a natural gift for making spheres, just as the Hive-bee has a natural gift for making hexagonal prisms. Both achieve geometrical perfection in their work and are independent of any special mechanism which would force upon them the particular shape attained.

For the time being, keep this in mind: the Sacred Beetle makes his ball by placing next to each other armful after armful of the materials which he has collected; he builds it up without moving it, without turning it round. He fashions the dung with the pressure of his fore-arms as the modeller in our studios fashions his clay with the pressure of his thumb. And the result is not an approximate sphere, with a lumpy surface; it is a perfect sphere, which our human manufacturers would not disown.

The time has come for retiring with the booty so that we may bury it farther away, at no great depth, and consume it in peace. The owner, therefore, draws his ball out of the dung-yard; and, in accordance with ancient usage, begins straightway to roll it about on the ground, a little at random. Any one who was not present at the beginning and who now saw the ball rolling along, with the insect pushing it backwards, would naturally imagine that the round shape resulted from this method of transport. It rolls, therefore it becomes round, even as a shapeless lump of clay would soon become round if trundled in the same way. Though apparently logical, the idea is erroneous in every respect: we have just seen this perfect sphericity acquired before the ball moved from the spot. The rolling therefore has nothing to do with this geometrical accuracy; it merely hardens the surface into a tough crust and polishes it a little, if only by working into the substance of the pellet any coarse [[46]]bits that might have made it rough at the beginning. Between the pill that has been rolled for hours and the pill that is stationary in the dung-yard there is no difference in configuration.

What is the advantage of this particular shape, which is invariably adopted at the very outset of the work? Does the Scarab derive any benefit from the circular form? Your spectacles would have to be made of walnut-shells if you failed to see that the insect is brilliantly inspired when it kneads its cake into a ball. These victuals, the meagrest of meagre pittances from the point of view of nourishment, for the Sheep’s fourfold stomach has already extracted pretty nearly all the assimilable matter, have to make up in quantity for what they lack in quality.

It is the same with various other Dung-beetles. They are all insatiable gluttons; they all need a much larger amount of food than their modest dimensions would lead us to suspect. The Spanish Copris, no bigger than a good-sized hazel-nut, accumulates underground, for a single meal, a pie as big as my fist; the Stercoraceous Geotrupes hoards in his hole a sausage nine inches long and as wide as the neck of a claret-bottle.

These mighty eaters have an easy time of it. They establish themselves immediately under the heap dropped by some standing Mule. Here they dig passages and dining-rooms. The provisions are at the door of the house; they form a roof for it. All that you have to do is to bring them in, armful by armful, taking only as much as you can carry comfortably, for you can go on fetching more as long as you like. In this way, scandalous quantities of food are unobtrusively stored away in peaceful manors whose presence no outward sign betrays. [[47]]

The Sacred Beetle is not so fortunate as to have his cottage underneath the heap where the victuals are collected. He is of a vagabond temperament; and, when his work is over, he has no great inclination for the company of those arrant thieves, his kinsmen. He has therefore to travel to a distance with what he has secured, in quest of a site where he can establish himself alone. His stock of provisions, it is true, is comparatively modest: it is not to be mentioned in the same breath as the Copris’ enormous cakes or the Geotrupes’ fat sausages. No matter: modest though it be, its weight and bulk are too much for the strength of any Beetle that might think of carrying it direct. It is too heavy, ever so much too heavy, for him to take between his legs and fly away with, nor could he possibly drag it, gripped in his mandibles.

If the hermit, eager to withdraw from the world, wished to make use of direct means of conveyance, there would be only one method by which he could accumulate in his far-off cell food enough for even a single day: that would be to carry load after load on the wing, each load being proportionate to his strength. But what a number of journeys that would involve! What a lot of time would be wasted in this piecemeal harvesting! Besides, when he went back, would he not find the table already cleared? Think of the number of guests who were giving it their attention! The opportunity is a good one; it may not occur again for a long while. We must make the most of it without delay; the thing to do is to secure enough now to stock our larder for at least a day.

But how to set about it? Nothing could be simpler. What we cannot carry we drag; what we cannot drag we cart by rolling it along, as witness all our wheeled conveyances. The Sacred Beetle therefore chooses the sphere [[48]]as a means of transport. It is the best shape of all for rolling; it needs no axle-tree; it adapts itself admirably to the diverse inequalities of the ground and, at each point of its surface, provides the necessary leverage for the least expenditure of effort. Such is the mechanical problem which the pill-roller solves. The spherical form of his treasure is not the effect of the rolling: it precedes it; it is modelled precisely with a view to that method of conveyance, which is to make the carriage of the heavy load feasible.

The Sacred Beetle is a passionate lover of the sun, whose image he copies in the radiating notches of his rounded shield. He needs the bright light in order to make the most of the heap whence he extracts first provisions and next materials for nest-building. The other Dung-beetles—Geotrupes, Copres, Onites, Onthophagi—for the most part have dark, mysterious habits; they work unseen under the roof of excrement; they do not begin their quest until night is at hand and the last glimmer of twilight is fading. The more trustful Scarab both seeks and finds amid the gladness of the noonday sun; he works his bit of ground quite openly and reaps his harvest in the hottest and brightest hours of the day. His ebon breastplate is glittering on top of the heap at times when there is naught to indicate the presence of numerous fellow-workers, belonging to other genera, who are busy underneath, carving themselves their share of the lower strata. Darkness for others, but for him the light!

This love of the unscreened sun has its blissful side, as the insect, drunk with heat, shows from time to time by exultant transports; but it has also certain disadvantages. I have never witnessed any quarrel at harvest-time [[49]]between next-door neighbours, when these were Copres or Geotrupes. Working in the dark, each is ignorant of what is happening beside him. The rich morsel secured by one of them cannot arouse the envy of his neighbours, since it is not perceived. This perhaps explains the pacific relations among Dung-beetles who work in the gloomy depths of the heap.

My suspicions are not unfounded. Robbery, the execrable right of the strongest, is not the exclusive prerogative of the human brute: animals also practise it; and the Sacred Beetle is a notorious offender. As the work is done in the open, every one knows or is able to find out what his companions are doing. They are mutually envious of each other’s pills; and scuffles take place between proprietors wishing to leave the yard and plunderers who find it more convenient to rob their fellows than to set to work and knead loaves for themselves. On guard on the top of his treasure, the owner of a ball will face his assailant, who is trying to climb up, and push him into space with a stroke from his stout fore-arms. The thief is flung on his back and flounders about for a moment, but he is soon up and back again. The struggle is renewed. Right does not always win, in which case the robber makes off with his prize and the victim returns to the heap to make himself another pill. It is not unusual for a third thief to appear upon the scene during the fight and settle matters between the litigants by carrying off the property at issue. I am inclined to think that it was affrays of this sort that gave rise to the childish story of the Sacred Beetles who were called to the rescue and came to lend a hand to their brothers in distress. Brazen footpads were taken for kindly helpers. [[50]]

The Sacred Beetle then is an inveterate thief; he shares the tastes of the Bedouin Arab, his fellow-countryman in Africa; he too is addicted to raiding. In his case, hunger and dearth, both evil counsellors, cannot be invoked as an explanation of this moral obliquity. Provisions are plentiful in my cages; certainly, in their days of liberty, my captives never lived in the midst of such abundance; and yet affrays are of frequent occurrence. They fight hotly-contested battles for the loaves, just as though bread were lacking. Poverty has nothing to do with it, for very often the thief abandons his booty after rolling it for a few seconds. They steal for the pleasure of stealing. As La Fontaine[1] well says, there is

… double profit à faire:

Son bien premièrement; et puis le mal d’autrui.[2]

In view of this propensity for thieving, what is the best thing that a Scarab can do when he has conscientiously made his ball? Obviously, to shun his fellows, to leave the premises and get away to a distant spot where he can consume his provisions in the depths of some hiding-place. This is what he does; and he loses no time in doing it: he knows his kinsmen too well.

Here we see the necessity for an easy method of conveyance, so that sufficient provisions may be carted in a single journey and as swiftly as possible. The Sacred Beetle likes working in the bright light, in the sunshine. His profits therefore, made in full view of everybody, are no secret to any of the workers who have hurried to the [[51]]same heap. Thus is envy kindled; thus it becomes imperative to retire to a distance, in order to avoid being robbed. This speedy retreat demands a convenient means of transport; and that is obtained by the spherical form given to the materials collected.

Here is the conclusion, unexpected but very logical and I would even say obvious: the Sacred Beetle shapes his provisions into a ball because he is an ardent lover of the sun. The various Dung-beetles who work in broad daylight, the Gymnopleuri and Sisyphi of my district, conform to the same mechanical principle: they all know the advantages of a sphere, the best rolling-apparatus; they all practise the art of pill-making. The other Dung-beetles, who work in the dark, do nothing of the kind: their accumulations of food are shapeless.

Life in the vivarium supplies us with some other facts which are not undeserving of the commentator’s attention. We have said that, when fresh provisions are supplied, the Sacred Beetles who are roaming about come running up eagerly to the smoking fare. The rich effluvia also speedily attract those who are slumbering in their burrows. Little mounds of sand pop up here and there, cracking as though for an eruption, and we see new guests emerge, wiping the dust from their eyes with the flat of their feet. Neither their dozing in that underground room nor the thick roof of their dwelling has succeeded in foiling their keenness of scent: those who have had to unearth themselves reach the lump almost as quickly as the others.

These details remind us of certain facts noted, not without surprise, by a host of observers on the sunny beaches at Cette, Palavas, the Golfe Juan and the North African coast, down to the lonely Sahara. Here the [[52]]Sacred Beetle and his kinsmen—the Half-spotted Scarab, the Pock-marked Scarab and others—swarm, becoming more vigorous and more active in proportion as the climate grows hotter. They abound; and yet very often not one shows himself; the entomologist’s practised eye fails to discover a single specimen.

But now see things change. Seized with an urgent physiological need, you leave your party unobtrusively and retire behind the bushes. You have hardly stood up, hardly begun to adjust your dress, when—whoosh!—here comes one, here come three, here come ten, appearing suddenly you know not whence, and swoop upon the provender. Have they hastened from afar, these bustling scavengers? Certainly not. Had they been apprised at a great distance by their sense of smell, which is not in itself impossible, they would not have had time to reach the quite recent windfall so promptly. It follows, therefore, that they were close by, within a radius of ten or twenty yards, hidden underground and dozing. A scent that is ever awake, even in the lethargy of sleep, told them, down in their burrows, of the happy event; and, splitting their ceilings, they hurry up forthwith. In less time than the incident takes to relate, a swarming population enlivens what was but now a desert.

A keen and vigilant scent is the Beetle’s, we must admit; a scent which is always in operation. The Dog smells the truffle through the soil, but he is awake; the pill-roller smells his favourite fare through the ground in the opposite direction, but he is asleep. Which of the two has the subtler scent?

Science flings wide her net, welcoming even filth; and truth soars at heights where nothing can soil her. The reader will therefore be good enough to excuse certain [[53]]details which cannot be avoided in a history of the Dung-beetle; he will show some indulgence for what has gone before and what will follow. The revolting workshop of the insect that manipulates ordure will lead perhaps to loftier ideas than would the perfumer’s factory with its jasmine and patchouli.

I have accused the Sacred Beetle of being an insatiable gormandizer. It is time to prove what I said. In my cages, which are too small to allow of much pill-rolling, my boarders often scorn to accumulate provisions and confine themselves to eating where they are. It is a good opportunity for us: the meal taken in public will tell us better than the underground banquet what a Dung-beetle’s stomach can do.

On a very still and sultry day—these are the conditions most favourable to my anchorites’ gastronomic joys—I observe one of the diners in the open air, from eight o’clock in the morning until eight o’clock at night. Watch in hand, I time the glutton. He appears to have come across a morsel greatly to his taste, for, during those twelve hours, he never stops feasting, but remains glued to the table, absolutely stationary. At eight o’clock in the evening, I pay him a last visit. His appetite seems undiminished; I find him in as fine fettle as at the start. The banquet then must have gone on some time longer, until the dish had disappeared entirely. In fact, next morning there was no sign of my Beetle; and, of the sumptuous repast begun on the previous day, naught remained but crumbs.

To eat the clock round is no small feat of gluttony; but the present instance shows a much more remarkable feat of digestion. While matter is continuously being chewed and swallowed by the insect in front, it is [[54]]reappearing, no less continuously, behind, deprived of its nutritive particles and spun into a thin black cord, similar to cobbler’s thread. The Scarab never evacuates except at table, so quickly are his digestive operations performed. The wire-drawing apparatus begins to work at the first few mouthfuls; it ceases soon after the last. Without a break from beginning to end of the meal, the slender cord, ever appended to the discharging orifice, goes on piling itself into a heap which can easily be unrolled so long as there is no sign of desiccation.

The working is as regular as that of a chronometer. Every minute, or rather, to be exact, every four-and-fifty seconds, a discharge takes place and the thread is lengthened by three to four millimetres.[3] At long intervals I employ my tweezers, remove the cord and unroll the mass along a graduated rule, in order to measure the amount produced. The total for twelve hours is 2·88 metres.[4] As the meal and its necessary complement, the work of the digestive apparatus, went on for some time longer after my last visit, which was paid at eight o’clock in the evening by lantern-light, my Beetle must have spun an unbroken stercoraceous cord well over three yards in length.

Given the diameter and the length of the thread, it is easy to calculate its volume. Nor is it difficult to arrive at the exact volume of the insect by measuring the quantity of water which it displaces when immersed in a narrow cylinder. The figures thus obtained are not devoid of interest: they tell us that, at a single bout of eating, in a dozen hours, the Sacred Beetle digests very nearly his own bulk in food. What a stomach! And, [[55]]above all, what rapidity, what power of digestion! From the very first mouthfuls, the residuum forms itself into a thread that stretches and stretches indefinitely as long as the meal lasts. In that amazing laboratory, which perhaps never puts up its shutters, unless it be when victuals are lacking, the material merely passes through, is at once treated by the stomach’s reagents and at once exhausted. One may well believe that an apparatus which sanifies filth so quickly has some part to play in the public health. We shall have occasion to return to this important subject. [[56]]

[1] Jean de La Fontaine (1621–1695), author of the famous Fables.—Translator’s Note. [↑]

[2]

‘… a double chance of gain:

First, one’s own profit; next, another’s loss.’

[3] ·11 to ·15 inch.—Translator’s Note. [↑]

[4] Close upon 9½ feet.—Translator’s Note. [↑]

[[Contents]]

Chapter iv

THE SACRED BEETLE: THE PEAR

The young shepherd who had been told in his spare time to watch the doings of the Sacred Beetle came to me in high spirits, one Sunday in the latter part of June, to say that he thought the time had come to begin our investigations. He had detected the insect issuing from the ground, had dug at the spot where it made its appearance, and had found, at no great depth, the queer thing which he was bringing me.

Queer it was and calculated to upset the little that I thought I knew. In shape, it was exactly like a tiny pear that had lost all its fresh colour and turned brown in rotting. What could this curious object be, this pretty plaything that seemed to have come from a turner’s workshop? Was it made by human hands? Was it a model of the fruit of the pear-tree intended for some children’s museum? One would say so.

The little ones group themselves round me; they look at the treasure-trove with longing eyes; they would like to add it to the contents of their toy-box. It is much prettier in shape than an agate marble, much more graceful than an ivory egg or a boxwood top. The material, it is true, seems none too nicely chosen; but it is firm to the touch and very artistically curved. In any case, the little pear discovered underground must not go to swell [[57]]the nursery collection until we have found out more about it.

Can it really be the Sacred Beetle’s work? Is there an egg inside it, a grub? The shepherd assures me that there is. A similar pear, crushed by accident in the digging, contained, he says, a white egg, the size of a grain of wheat. I dare not believe it, so greatly does the object which he has brought me differ from the ball which I expected to see.

To open the mysterious prize and ascertain its contents would perhaps be imprudent: such an act of violence might jeopardize the life of the germ within, always provided that the Scarab’s egg be there, a matter of which the shepherd seems convinced. Besides, I say to myself, the pear-shape, so totally opposed to all our accepted ideas, is probably accidental. Who knows if luck will ever give me anything like it again? I should be wise to keep the thing just as it is and await events; above all, I should be wise to go and seek for information on the spot.

The shepherd was at his post by daybreak the next morning. I joined him on some slopes that had been lately cleared of their trees, where the hot summer sun, which strikes with such force on the back of one’s neck, could not reach us for two or three hours. In the cool morning air, with the Sheep browsing under Sultan’s care, the two of us scattered on our search.

A Sacred Beetle’s burrow is soon found: you can tell it by the fresh little mound of earth above it. With a vigorous turn of the wrist, my companion digs away with the little pocket-trowel which I have lent him. Incorrigible earth-scraper that I am, I seldom set forth without this light but serviceable tool. While he digs, I lie down, [[58]]the better to see the arrangement and furniture of the cellar which we are unearthing, and I am all eyes. The shepherd uses the trowel as a lever and, with his other hand, holds back and pushes aside the soil.

Here we are! A cave opens out and, in the moist warmth of the yawning vault, I see a splendid pear lying full length upon the ground. No, I shall not soon forget this first revelation of the Scarab’s maternal masterpiece. My excitement could have been no greater had I been an archæologist digging among the ancient relics of Egypt and lighting upon the sacred insect of the dead, carved in emerald, in some Pharaonic crypt. O ineffable moment, when truth suddenly shines forth! What other joys can compare with that holy rapture! The shepherd was in the seventh heaven; he laughed in response to my smile and was happy in my gladness.

Luck does not repeat itself: ‘Non bis in idem,’ says the old adage. And here have I twice had under my eyes this curious pear-shape. Is it by any chance the normal shape, not subject to exception? Must we abandon the thought of a sphere similar to those which the insect rolls along the ground? Let us continue and we shall see.

A second hole is found. Like the previous one, it contains a pear. My two treasures are as like as two peas; they might have issued from the same mould. And here is a valuable confirmatory detail: in the second burrow, by the side of the pear and fondly embracing it, is the mother Beetle, engaged no doubt in giving it the finishing touches before leaving the underground cave for good. All doubts are dispelled: I know the worker and I know the work. [[59]]

The rest of the morning provided abundant corroboration of these premisses: before an intolerable sun drove me from the slope which I was exploring, I was in possession of a dozen pears identical in shape and almost in dimensions. On several occasions the mother was present in the workshop.

To conclude this part of our subject, let me tell what the future held in store for me. All through the dog-days, from the end of June until September, I paid almost daily visits to the spots frequented by the Sacred Beetle; and the burrows unearthed by my trowel furnished an amount of evidence exceeding my fondest hopes. The insects reared in captivity supplied me with more facts, though these, it is true, were very scanty in comparison with the rich crop from the open fields. All told, about a hundred nests, at the lowest computation, passed through my hands; and they were invariably the graceful pear-shape, never, absolutely never, the round shape of the pill, never the ball of which the books tell us.

I myself once shared this error, placing as I did implicit confidence in the words of the learned authorities. My old hunting-expeditions on the Plateau des Angles led to no result; my attempts at home-rearing failed pitifully; and yet I was anxious to give my young readers some idea of the nest built by the Sacred Beetle. I therefore adopted the traditional theory of the round shape; and then, taking analogy for my guide, I made use of the little that I had learnt from other dung-rollers to attempt an approximate sketch of the Sacred Beetle’s work. It was an unlucky shot. Analogy no doubt is a valuable servant, but oh, how poor compared with direct observation! Deceived by this guide, so often untrustworthy amid the inexhaustible variety of life, I helped [[60]]to perpetuate the blunder; and so I hasten to apologize, begging the reader to dismiss from his mind the little that I have said heretofore on the probable nest-building methods of the Sacred Beetle.

And now let us unfold the authentic story, admitting as evidence only facts actually observed again and again. The Sacred Beetle’s nest is betrayed on the outside by a little heap of earth, by a tiny mound formed of the superfluous soil which the mother, when closing up the abode, has been unable to replace, part of the excavation having to be left empty. Under this mound is a shaft which is rarely more than four inches in depth, followed by a horizontal gallery, either straight or winding, which ends in a spacious hall, large enough to contain a man’s fist. This is the crypt in which the egg lies enveloped in food and subjected to the incubation of a hot sun baking the ground only a few inches above it; this is the roomy workshop in which the mother, unfettered in her movements, has kneaded and shaped the future nurseling’s food into a pear.

This stercoraceous bread has its main axis lying in a horizontal position. Its shape and size remind one exactly of those little Midsummer’s Day pears which, by virtue of their bright colouring, their flavour and their early ripening, are so popular with the children. There is a slight variation in the bulk of the pears found. The largest dimensions are 45 millimetres in length by 30 millimetres in width;[1] the smallest are 35 millimetres by 28.[2]

Without being as polished as stucco, the surface, which is absolutely even, is carefully glazed with a thin layer [[61]]of red earth. At first soft as potter’s clay, the pyriform loaf soon dries and acquires a stout crust which refuses to yield to the pressure of the fingers. Wood itself is no harder. This rind is the defensive wrapper that isolates the recluse from the world and allows him to consume his victuals in profound peace. But, should the central mass become dried up, then the danger is extremely serious. We shall have occasion to refer to the unhappy lot of the grub condemned to a diet of too stale bread.

What dough does the Scarab’s bakehouse use? Who are the purveyors? The Horse and the Mule? By no means. Yet that was what I expected—and so would anybody—after seeing the insect make such energetic raids, for its own use, upon the overflowing store of an ordinary lump of dung. That is where it habitually manufactures the rolling ball which it goes and consumes in some underground retreat.

While coarse bread, full of bits of hay, is good enough for the mother, she becomes more particular where her children are concerned. She now wants the very daintiest pastry, rich in nourishment and easily digested; she wants the ovine manna: not that which the Sheep of a costive habit scatters in trails of black olives, but that which, elaborated in a less dry intestine, is fashioned into a single flat cake. This is the material required, the dough exclusively used. It is no longer the poor and stringy produce of the Horse, but an unctuous, plastic, homogeneous thing, soaked through and through with nutritive juices. Its plasticity and delicacy make it an admirable medium for an artistic piece of work like the Scarab’s pear, while its alimentary qualities suit the weak stomach of the new-born grub. There may not [[62]]be much of it, but the infant Beetle will find it sufficient for his needs.

This explains the smallness of these pears, a point which made me suspicious of the origin of my treasure until I found the mother present with the provisions. I was unable to see in those little pears the bill of fare of a future Sacred Beetle, who is so great a glutton and of so remarkable a size.

It probably also explains my failure in the old days with my cages. In my profound ignorance of the Sacred Beetle’s domestic life, I used to supply her with what I could pick up here and there, droppings of Horse or Mule; and the Beetle refused it for her children and declined to build a nest. To-day, taught by my experience in the fields, I go to the Sheep for my supplies and all is well in the cages. Does this mean that the insect never employs for its breeding-pears materials derived from the Horse, even if selected from the finest strata and carefully cleansed from objectionable matter? If the best cannot be obtained, is the middling refused? I prefer to be cautious and give no opinion. What I can declare is that I inspected over a hundred burrows with a view to writing this story, and that in every case, from first to last, the larva’s provisions had been obtained from the Sheep.

Where is the egg in that nutritive mass so novel in shape? One would be inclined to place it in the centre of the fat, round paunch. This central point is best protected against accidents from the outside, best off in the matter of temperature. Besides, the nascent grub would here find a deep layer of food on every side of it and would not be liable to make mistakes in the first mouthfuls. Everything being of the same kind all [[63]]round it, there would be no necessity for it to pick and choose; wherever it chanced to apply its prentice tooth, it could continue without hesitation its first dainty repast.

All this sounds so very rational that I allowed myself to be led away by it. In the first pear that I examined, layer by layer, shaving off slices with my penknife, I looked for the egg in the centre of the paunch, feeling almost certain of finding it there. To my great surprise, it was not there. Instead of being hollow, the centre of the pear is full and consists of one continuous uniform alimentary mass.

My deductions, which any observer in my place would certainly have shared, seemed very reasonable; the Scarab, however, is of another way of thinking. We have our logic, of which we are rather proud; the dung-kneader has hers, which is better than ours in this instance. She has her own foresight, takes her own precautions; and she places the egg elsewhere.

But where? Why, in the narrow part of the pear, in the neck, right at the end! Let us cut this neck lengthwise, taking the necessary precautions not to damage the contents. It is hollowed into a niche with polished and shiny walls. This niche is the tabernacle of the germ, the hatching-chamber. The egg, which is very large in proportion to the size of the mother, is an elongated oval, about ten millimetres in length with a diameter of five millimetres at the widest part.[3] It is white and is separated on all sides from the walls of the chamber by a slight empty space, the only contact being at the rear end of the egg, which adheres to the top of the niche. Lying horizontally, in conformity with the normal [[64]]position of the pear, the whole of it, excepting the point of attachment, thus rests upon an air-mattress, warmest and most buoyant of beds.

Now we know all about it. Let us next try to understand the Scarab’s logic. Let us find out why she has to make that pear of hers, so unusual a shape in insect structures; let us seek to explain the suitability of the egg’s curious position. We are venturing on dangerous ground when we enquire into the how and wherefore of things. We easily lose our footing in that mysterious land where the moving soil gives way beneath us, swallowing the foolhardy in the quicksands of error. Must we abandon such excursions, because of the risk? Why should we?

What does our science, so sublime compared with the feebleness of our resources, so contemptible in the face of the boundless stretches of the unknown, what does it know of absolute reality? Nothing. The world interests us only because of the ideas which we form of it. Remove the idea and everything becomes a desert, chaos, nothingness. An omnium-gatherum of facts is not knowledge, but at most a cold catalogue which we must thaw and quicken at the fire of the mind; we must bring to it thought and the light of reason; we must interpret.

Let us adopt this course to explain the work of the Sacred Beetle. Perhaps we shall end by attributing our own logic to the insect. After all, it will be just as remarkable to see a wonderful agreement prevail between that which reason dictates to us and that which instinct dictates to the insect.

A grave danger threatens the Sacred Beetle in his grub state: the drying-up of the food. The crypt in which the larval life is spent has a layer of earth, some four inches thick, for a ceiling. Of what avail is this flimsy [[65]]screen against the torrid heat that beats down upon the soil, baking it like a brick to a far greater depth than that? At times the temperature of the grub’s abode mounts towards boiling-point; when I thrust my hand into it, I feel the hot air of a Turkish bath.

The provisions, therefore, even though they have to last but three or four weeks, are liable to dry up before that time and to become uneatable. When, instead of the soft bread of its first meal, the unhappy grub finds nothing to stay its stomach but a horrible crust, hard as a pebble and tooth-proof, it is bound to perish of hunger. And it does actually so perish. I have found numbers of these victims of the August sun which, after eating plentifully of the fresh food and digging themselves a cell in it, had succumbed, unable to continue biting into provisions that had become too hard. There remained a thick shell, a sort of closed oven, in which the poor thing lay baked and shrivelled up.

While the grub dies of hunger in a shell which has dried into stone, the full-grown insect that has completed its transformations dies there too, for it is incapable of bursting the prison and freeing itself. I shall come back later to the question of the final emergence and will say no more about it for the present. Let us confine our attention to the troubles of the grub.

The drying-up of the victuals is, I have said, fatal to it. This is proved by the larvæ found baked in their oven; it is also proved, in a more definite fashion, by the following experiment. In July, the period of active nidification, I place in wooden or cardboard boxes a dozen pears unearthed that morning from their native burrows. These boxes, carefully closed, are put away in the dark, in my study, where the same temperature prevails as outside. Well, [[66]]in none of them is the infant reared: sometimes the egg shrivels; sometimes the worm is hatched, but very soon dies. On the other hand, in tin boxes or glass receptacles, everything goes well: not one attempt at rearing fails.

Whence do these differences arise? Simply from this: in the high temperature of July, evaporation proceeds apace under the permeable wooden or cardboard screen; the food-pear dries up; and the unfortunate worm dies of hunger. In the impermeable tin boxes, in the carefully-sealed glass receptacles, there is no evaporation; the provisions retain their softness; and the grubs thrive as well as in their native burrow.

The insect employs two methods to ward off the danger of desiccation. In the first place, it compresses the outer layer with all the strength of its stout, flat fore-arms, turning it into a protective rind more homogeneous and more compact than the central mass. If I break one of these dried-up provision-boxes, the rind usually comes clean away, leaving the centre part bare. The whole suggests the shell and kernel of a nut. The pressure exercised by the mother when manipulating her pear has affected the surface layer to a depth of a few millimetres, and this has produced the rind; the influence of the pressure is not felt lower down, and the result is the big central kernel. In the hot summer months, the housewife puts her bread into a closed pan, to keep it fresh. This is what the insect does, in its fashion: by dint of compression, it covers the family bread with a pan.

The Sacred Beetle does not stop there: she becomes a geometrician capable of solving a delicate problem of minimum values. Other conditions being equal, evaporation obviously takes place in proportion to the extent of the evaporating surface. The alimentary mass must [[67]]therefore be given the smallest possible surface, in order to reduce the waste of moisture as much as possible; at the same time, this minimum surface must incorporate the maximum aggregate of nutritive materials, so that the grub may find sufficient nourishment. Now what is the form that encloses the greatest bulk within the smallest superficial area? Geometry answers, the sphere.

The Scarab, therefore, shapes the larva’s ration into a sphere (we will leave the neck of the pear out of the question for the moment); and this round form is not the result of blind mechanical conditions, imposing an inevitable shape upon the worker; it is not the violent effect of the rolling along the ground. We have already seen that, for the purpose of easier and swifter transit, the insect kneads into a perfect sphere the materials which it intends to consume at a distance, without moving that sphere from the spot on which it rests; in short, we have realized that the round form precedes the rolling.

In the same way, it will be seen presently that the pear destined for the grub is fashioned in the burrow. It undergoes no rolling-process, it is not even moved. The Sacred Beetle gives it the requisite outline exactly as a modelling artist might do, shaping his clay under the pressure of his thumb.

With the tools which it possesses, the insect could obtain other forms of a less delicate curve than its pear-shaped piece of work. It could, for instance, make a rough cylinder, the sausage customary among the Geotrupes; or, simplifying the work to the utmost, it could leave the lump without any definite form, just as it happened to find it. Things would proceed all the faster and would leave more time for playing in the sun. But no: the Sacred Beetle never chooses any shape but the sphere, [[68]]though it necessitates such scrupulous accuracy; she acts as though she knew the laws of evaporation and geometry from beginning to end.

It remains for us to examine the neck of the pear. What can be its object, its use? The reply forces itself upon us irresistibly. This neck contains the egg, in the hatching-chamber. Now every germ, whether of plant or animal, needs air, the primary stimulus of life. To admit that vivifying combustible, the shell of a bird’s egg is riddled with an endless number of pores. The pear of the Sacred Beetle may be compared with the egg of the Hen. Its shell is the rind, hardened by pressure, to avoid untimely desiccation; its nutritive mass, its meat, its yolk is the soft ball sheltered under the rind; its air-chamber is the terminal space, the cavity in the neck, where the air envelops the germ on every side. Where would that germ be better off, for breathing, than in its hatching-chamber projecting into the atmosphere and giving free play to the passage of gases through its thin and easily permeable wall?

In the centre of the mass, on the other hand, aeration is not so easy. The hardened rind does not possess pores like an egg-shell’s; and the central kernel is formed of compact matter. The air enters it nevertheless, for presently the grub will be able to live in it: the grub, a robust organism which does not need the same tender flutter of life as the sensitive germ.

Where the adolescent larva thrives, the egg would die of suffocation. Here is a proof of it. I take a small, wide-necked phial and fill it with Sheep-dung, the fare required in this case. I push in a bit of stick and obtain a shaft which shall represent the hatching-chamber. Down this shaft I place an egg carefully moved from its cell. I [[69]]close the orifice and cover up everything with a thickly-heaped layer of the same material. Here, in all excepting the shape, we have an artificial reproduction of the Sacred Beetle’s pellet; only, in this instance, the egg is in the centre of the mass, the place which over-hasty considerations made us but now believe the most suitable. Well, the point which we selected is fatal to life. The egg dies there. What has it lacked? Apparently, proper aeration.

Plenteously enveloped by the clammy mass, which is a bad conductor of heat, it is also deprived of the mild temperature needed for its hatching. In addition to air, every germ requires heat. In order to be as near as possible to the incubator, the germ in the bird’s egg is on the surface of the yolk and, thanks to its extreme mobility, always comes to the top, no matter what the position of the egg may be. Thus the most is made of the maternal heating-apparatus seated upon the brood.

In the insect’s case, the incubator is the earth, which is warmed by the sun. Its germ likewise comes close to the heating-apparatus; it goes as near as it can to the universal incubator, in search of its spark of life; instead of remaining sunk in the middle of the inert mass, it takes up its position at the top of a projecting nipple, lapped on all sides by the warm emanations of the soil.

These conditions, air and warmth, are so fundamental that no Dung-beetle neglects them. The piles of food hoarded vary in form, as we shall have an opportunity of seeing: in addition to the pear, such shapes as the cylinder, the ovoid, the pill and the thimble are adopted, according to the genus of the manipulator; but, amid this diversity of outline, one primary feature remains unchanged, and that is the placing of the egg in a hatching-chamber close [[70]]to the surface which allows free access to air and heat. And the most gifted in this delicate art of knowing just where to place the egg is the Sacred Beetle with her pear.