The earth is soaked. This is the wet rag of my experiment. At its touch, the shell recovers the softness of its early days, the casket becomes yielding; the insect makes play with its legs, pushes with its back; it is free. It is, in fact, in the month of September, during the first rains which herald the coming autumn, that the Scarab leaves the native burrow and comes to enliven the pastoral sward, even as the former generation enlivened it in the spring. The clouds, hitherto so chary, have come at last to set him free.
Under conditions of exceptional coolness of the earth, the bursting of the shell and the emerging of its occupant can occur at an earlier period; but, in ground scorched by the fierce sun of summer, as is usually the case in these parts, the Scarab, however eager he may be to see the light, must needs wait for the first rains to soften his stubborn shell. A downpour means to him a question of life and death. Horapollo, that echo of the Egyptian magi, saw true when he made water play its part in the insect’s birth.
But let us drop the jargon of antiquity and its shreds of truth; let us not neglect the first acts of the Sacred Beetle on leaving his shell; let us be present at his prentice steps in the open-air life. In August, I break the casket in which I hear the helpless prisoner fretting. The insect, the only one of its species, is placed in a volery. Provisions are fresh and plentiful. This is the moment, I say to myself, when we take refreshment after so long an abstinence. Well, I am wrong: the new recruit sets no store by the victuals, notwithstanding [[60]]my invitations, my appeals to the appetizing heap. What he wants above all is the joys of light. He climbs the metal trellis, sets himself in the sun and there, motionless, takes his fill of its beams.
What passes through his dull-witted scavenger’s brain during this first bath of radiant light? Probably nothing. He enjoys the unconscious happiness of a flower blooming in the sun.
At last, the insect goes to the victuals. A ball is constructed according to all the rules. There is no apprenticeship, no first attempt: the spherical form is obtained as regularly as though after long practice. A burrow is dug wherein to eat in peace the lately-kneaded bread. Here we find the novice thoroughly versed in his art. No experience, however prolonged, will add anything to his talents. [[61]]
[1] ·39 inch.—Translator’s Note. [↑]
[2] Pierre André Latreille (1762–1833), one of the founders of entomological science.—Translator’s Note. [↑]
[3] Mémoires du Muséum d’histoire naturelle, vol. v., p. 249.—Author’s Note. [↑]