The Onthophagus, the Copris and the other Beetles with cream-washed hatching-chambers are a delusion and a snare to us, with their eggs which are so ready to swell. The Minotaurus tells me so, somewhat late in the day; she compels me to reconsider my earlier interpretations entirely. Her egg is not enclosed in a hollow inside the victuals whose emanations might explain its growth; it is outside the sausage, a good way underneath, surrounded by sand on every side; and nevertheless it increases in size just as well as those lodged in a succulent cabin.
Moreover, the new-born grub surprises me by its chubbiness; it is seven or eight times as big as the egg whence it comes; the contents vastly exceed the capacity of the container. Besides, before touching the food from which it is separated by a ceiling of sand, the grub for a certain time continues its strange growing, as though new materials were being added to those which came out of the egg. [[278]]
Here, in the dry sand, it is impossible to talk of effluvia capable of providing the wherewithal for the grub to wax big and fat. Then to what do both the egg and the new-born grub owe their growth? The Languedocian Scorpion[7] gives us an excellent clue. When passing from a sort of larval stage to the final form, which is the same as that of the adult, we have seen him suddenly double his length and consequently increase eightfold in bulk before taking the least scrap of nourishment. A highly complex process of co-ordination and adjustment takes place in the interior of the organism; and the dimensions increase without the addition of new material.
An animal is a structure capable of becoming more spacious with the same amount of materials. Everything depends upon the molecular architecture, which becomes more and more refined by the tremors of life. The contents of the egg, a compact mass, expand into a creature which is all the bulkier for its richness in organs for diverse functions. Even so, the locomotive engine, the creature of industry, occupies more space than the iron, its raw material, melted down into a single ingot.
When the shell is able to stretch, the egg swells under the thrust of its contents, which form into an organic whole and dilate. This is the case with the various Dung-beetles. When the shell is hard and rigid, a void is made by evaporation at the thick end; and this excess of space supplies the room necessary for the increase in volume of the contents. This is the case with the birds, which develop within a chalky enclosure that does [[279]]not alter in size. Both of them dilate, with this difference that the soft shell allows the inside work to be perceived outside, whereas the stiff shell reveals nothing.
Lastly, the hatching does not always stop the growth that is not preceded by feeding. For a little while longer the larva continues to increase in size; it completes the work of acquiring stability in its new equilibrium, the equilibrium of a living creature; it improves its physique by supplementary stretching. The Scorpion has already told us this; the grub of the Minotaurus and many others assure us of the same thing. It is, on a smaller scale, what we saw before in the Locust’s wing,[8] which, issuing from a very small sheath, soon unfurls into a sail of generous breadth.
Twice, therefore, am I changing my opinions in this history of the Dung-beetles: first, on the subject of the paste spread on the walls of the natal chamber; secondly, on the subject of the egg that increases in size after it is laid. I have corrected my statements without being greatly ashamed of my mistakes, for it is difficult indeed to reach the vein of truth at the first tentative boring. There is only one means of never blundering, which is never to do anything and, above all, to let ideas alone. [[280]]
[1] Chapter XI. of the present book appeared in the fifth volume of the Souvenirs entomologiques; this and the following chapter formed part of the tenth and last volume.—Translator’s Note. [↑]
[2] Cf. The Life and Love of the Insect: chap. x.—Translator’s Note. [↑]