CHAPTER VIII
THE SELF-DENIAL OF THE SPANISH COPRIS
You remember, I hope, the Sacred Beetle, who spends her time in making balls, both to serve as food and also to be the foundation of her pear-shaped nest. I pointed out the advantages of this shape for the young Beetles, since the globe is the best form that could be invented to keep their provisions from becoming dry and hard.
After watching this Beetle at work for a long time I began to wonder if I had not perhaps been mistaken in admiring her instinct so greatly. Was it really care for her grubs, I asked myself, that taught her to provide them with the tenderest and most suitable food? It is the trade of the Sacred Beetle to make balls. Is it wonderful that she should continue her ball-making underground? A creature built with long curved legs, very useful for rolling balls across the fields, will go on with her favourite occupation wherever she may be, without regard to her grubs. Perhaps the shape of the pear is mere chance.
To settle this question satisfactorily in my own mind I should need to be shown a Scavenger Beetle who was [[110]]utterly unfamiliar with the ball-making business in everyday life, and who yet, when laying-time was at hand, made an abrupt change in her habits and stored her provisions in the form of a round lump. That would show me that it was not merely custom, but care for her grubs, that made her choose the globular shape for her nest.
Now in my neighbourhood there is a Beetle of this very kind. She is one of the handsomest and largest, though not so imposing as the Sacred Beetle. Her name is the Spanish Copris, and she is remarkable for the sharp slope of her chest and the size of the horn surmounting her head.
Being round and squat, the Spanish Copris is certainly incapable of such gymnastics as are performed by the Sacred Beetle. Her legs, which are insignificant in length, and which she folds under her body at the slightest alarm, are not in the least like the stilts of the pill-rollers. Their stunted form and their lack of flexibility are enough in themselves to tell us that their owner would not care to roam about burdened with a rolling ball.
The Copris, indeed, is not of an active nature. Once she has found her provisions, at night or in the evening twilight, she begins to dig a burrow on the spot. It is a rough cavern, large enough to hold an apple. Here [[111]]is introduced, bit by bit, the stuff that is just overhead, or at any rate lying on the threshold of the cave. An enormous supply of food is stored in a shapeless mass, plain evidence of the insect’s gluttony. As long as the hoard lasts the Copris remains underground. When the larder is empty the insect searches out a fresh supply of food, and scoops out another burrow.
For the time being the Copris is merely a scavenger, a gatherer of manure. She is evidently quite ignorant, at present, of the art of kneading and modelling a round loaf. Besides, her short clumsy legs seem utterly unsuited for any such art.