In the centre of the mass, on the other hand, aeration is not so easy. The hardened rind does not possess the eggshell’s pores; and the central kernel is formed of compact matter. The air enters it, nevertheless, for presently the worm will be able to live in it, the worm, a robust organism less difficult and nice than the first throbs of life.
These conditions, air and warmth, are so fundamental that no Dung-beetle neglects them. The nutritive hoards [[30]]vary in form, as we shall have occasion to perceive: in addition to the pear, such shapes as the cylinder, the ovoid, the pill and the thimble are adopted, according to the species of the manipulator; but, amid this diversity of outline, one feature of the first importance remains constant, which is the egg lodged in a hatching-chamber close to the surface, providing an excellent means for the easy access of air and warmth. And the most gifted in this delicate art is the Sacred Beetle with her pear.
I was urging just now that this first of Dung-kneaders behaved with a logic that rivals our own. At the point to which we have come, the proof of my statement is established. Nay, better still. Let us submit the following problem to our leading scientific lights: a germ is accompanied by a mass of victuals liable soon to be rendered useless by desiccation. How should the alimentary mass be shaped? Where should the egg be laid so as to be easily influenced by air and warmth?
The first question of the problem has already been answered. Knowing that evaporation is in proportion to the extent of the evaporating surface, science declares that the victuals shall be arranged in a ball, because the spherical form is that which encloses the greatest amount of material within the smallest surface. As for the egg, since it requires a protecting sheath to avoid any harmful contact, it shall be contained within a thin, cylindrical case; and this case shall be implanted on the sphere.
Thus the requisite conditions are fulfilled: the provisions, gathered into a ball, keep fresh; the egg, protected by its slender, cylindrical sheath, receives the influence of air and warmth without impediment. The [[31]]strictly needful has been obtained; but it is very ugly. The practical has not troubled about the beautiful.
An artist corrects the brute work of reason. He replaces the cylinder by a semi-ellipsoid, of a much prettier form; he joins this ellipsoid to the sphere by means of a graceful curved surface; and the whole becomes the pear, the necked gourd. It is now a work of art, a thing of beauty.
The Scarab does exactly what the laws of æsthetics dictate to ourselves. Can she, too, have a sense of beauty? Is she able to appreciate the elegance of her pear? Certainly, she does not see it: she manipulates it in profound darkness. But she touches it. A poor touch hers, rudely clad in horn, yet not insensible, after all, to nicely-drawn outlines! [[32]]