The calabash is made: there remains the decoration. This is the work of patient after-touches which perfect the curves and leave on the soft loam a series of stippled impressions similar to those which the potter of prehistoric days distributed over his big-bellied jars with the ball of his thumb.
That finishes the work. The insect will begin all over again under a fresh carcase; for each burrow has one calabash and no more, even as with the Sacred Beetle and her pears.
Here is another of these artists of the pampas. All black and as big as the largest of our Onthophagi,18 whom she greatly resembles in general build, Canthon bispinus is likewise an exploiter of dead bodies, if not always on her own behalf, at least on that of her offspring.
18 Cf. The Sacred Beetle and Others: chaps. xi. xvii., and xviii.—Translator's Note.
She introduces very original innovations into the pill-maker's art. Her work, strewn like the aforementioned with finger-prints, is the pilgrim's gourd, the double-bellied gourd. Of the two stories, which are joined together by a fairly plainly-marked groove, the upper is the smaller and contains the egg in an incubating-chamber; the lower and bulkier is the food-stack.
Imagine the Sisyphus' little pear with its hatching-chamber swollen into a globule a trifle smaller than the sphere at the other end; suppose the two protuberances to be divided by a sort of wide open groove like that of a pulley; and we shall have something very like the Canthon's work in shape and size.
When placed on burning charcoal, this double-bellied gourd turns black, becomes covered with shiny warts that look like jet beads, emits a smell like that of grilled meat and leaves a residue of red clay. It is therefore formed of clay and sanies. Moreover, the paste is sprinkled with little scraps of dead flesh. At the smaller end is the egg, in a chamber with a very porous roof, to allow the air to enter.
The little undertaker has something better to show than her double sausage. Like the Bison Onitis, the Sisyphus and the Lunary Copris, she enjoys the collaboration of the father. Each burrow contains several cradles, with the father and mother invariably present. What are the two inseparables doing? They are watching their brood and, by dint of assiduous repairs, keeping the little sausages, which are in constant danger of cracking or drying up, in good condition.
The magic carpet which has allowed me to take this trip to the pampas supplies me with nothing else worth noting. Besides, the New World is poor in pill-rollers and cannot compare with Senegambia and the regions of the Upper Nile, that paradise of Copres and Sacred Beetles. Nevertheless we owe it one precious detail: the group which is commonly known by the name of Dung-beetles is divided into two corporations, one of which exploits dung, the other corpses.