Neither community of family nor community of labour! Then what is the motive for this apparent partnership? It is purely and simply an attempt at robbery. The zealous fellow-worker, on the false plea of lending a helping hand, cherishes a plan to purloin the ball at the first opportunity. To make one’s own ball at the heap means hard work and patience; to steal one ready-made, or at least to foist one’s self as a guest, is a much easier matter. Should the owner’s vigilance slacken, you can run away with his property; should you be too closely watched, you can sit down to table uninvited, pleading services rendered. It is ‘Heads I win, tails you lose’ in these tactics, so that pillage is practised as one of the most lucrative of trades. Some go to work craftily, in the way which I have described: they come to the aid of a comrade who has not the least need of them and hide the most barefaced greed under the cloak of charitable assistance. Others, bolder perhaps, more confident in their strength, go straight to their goal and commit robbery with violence. [[11]]
Scenes are constantly happening such as this: a Scarab goes off, peacefully, by himself, rolling his ball, his lawful property, acquired by conscientious work. Another comes flying up, I know not whence, drops down heavily, folds his dingy wings under their cases and, with the back of his toothed fore-arms, knocks over the owner, who is powerless to ward off the attack in his awkward position, harnessed as he is to his property. While the victim struggles to his feet, the other perches himself atop the ball, the best position from which to repel an assailant. With his fore-arms crossed over his breast, ready to hit back, he awaits events. The dispossessed one moves round the ball, seeking a favourable spot at which to make the assault; the usurper spins round on the roof of the citadel, facing his opponent all the time. If the latter raise himself in order to scale the wall, the robber gives him a blow that stretches him on his back. Safe at the top of his fortress, the besieged Beetle could foil his adversary’s attempts indefinitely if the latter did not change his tactics. He turns sapper so as to reduce the citadel with the garrison. The ball, shaken from below, totters and begins rolling, carrying with it the thieving Dung-beetle, who makes violent efforts to maintain his position on the top. This he succeeds in doing—though not invariably—thanks to hurried gymnastic feats which land him higher on the ball and make up for the ground which he loses by its rotation. Should a false movement bring him to earth, the chances become equal and the struggle turns into a wrestling-match. Robber and robbed grapple with each other, breast to breast. Their legs lock and unlock, their joints intertwine, their horny armour clashes and grates with the rasping sound of metal under the file. Then the one who succeeds in [[12]]throwing his opponent and releasing himself scrambles to the top of the ball and there takes up his position. The siege is renewed, now by the robber, now by the robbed, as the chances of the hand-to-hand conflict may decree. The former, a brawny desperado, no novice at the game, often has the best of the fight. Then, after two or three unsuccessful attempts, the defeated Beetle wearies and returns philosophically to the heap, to make himself a new pellet. As for the other, with all fear of a surprise attack at an end, he harnesses himself to the conquered ball and pushes it whither he pleases. I have sometimes seen a third thief appear upon the scene and rob the robber. Nor can I honestly say that I was sorry.
I ask myself in vain what Proudhon[3] introduced into Scarabæan morality the daring paradox that ‘property means plunder,’ or what diplomatist taught the Dung-beetle the savage maxim that ‘might is right.’ I have no data that would enable me to trace the origin of these spoliations, which have become a custom, of this abuse of strength to capture a lump of ordure. All that I can say is that theft is a general practice among the Scarabs. These dung-rollers rob one another with a calm effrontery which, to my knowledge, is without a parallel. I leave it to future observers to elucidate this curious problem in animal psychology and I go back to the two partners rolling their ball in concert.
But first let me dispel a current error in the text-books. I find in M. Émile Blanchard’s[4] magnificent work, [[13]]Métamorphoses, mœurs et instincts des insectes, the following passage:
‘Sometimes our insect is stopped by an insurmountable obstacle; the ball has fallen into a hole. At such moments the Ateuchus[5] gives evidence of a really astonishing grasp of the situation as well as of a system of ready communication between individuals of the same species which is even more remarkable. Recognizing the impossibility of coaxing the ball out of the hole, the Ateuchus seems to abandon it and flies away. If you are sufficiently endowed with that great and noble virtue called patience, stay by the forsaken ball: after a while, the Ateuchus will return to the same spot and will not return alone; he will be accompanied by two, three, four or five companions, who will all alight at the place indicated and will combine their efforts to raise the load. The Ateuchus has been to fetch reinforcements; and this explains why it is such a common sight, in the dry fields, to see several Ateuchi joining in the removal of a single ball.’
Lastly, I read in Illiger’s[6] Entomological Magazine:
‘A Gymnopleurus pilularius,[7] while constructing the ball of dung destined to contain her eggs, let it roll into a hole, whence she strove for a long time to extract it [[14]]unaided. Finding that she was wasting her time in vain efforts, she ran to a neighbouring heap of manure to fetch three individuals of her own species, who, uniting their strength to hers, succeeded in withdrawing the ball from the cavity into which it had fallen and then returned to their manure to continue their work.’
I crave a thousand pardons of my illustrious master, M. Blanchard, but things certainly do not happen as he says. To begin with, the two accounts are so much alike that they must have had a common origin. Illiger, on the strength of observations not continuous enough to deserve blind confidence, put forward the case of his Gymnopleurus; and the same story was repeated about the Scarabæi because it is, in fact, quite usual to see two of these insects occupied together either in rolling a ball or in getting it out of a troublesome place. But this cooperation in no way proves that the Dung-beetle who found himself in difficulties went to requisition the aid of his mates. I have had no small measure of the patience recommended by M. Blanchard; I have lived laborious days in close intimacy, if I may say so, with the Sacred Beetle; I have done everything that I could think of in order to enter as thoroughly as possible into his ways and habits and to study them from life; and I have never seen anything that suggested either nearly or remotely the idea of companions summoned to lend assistance. As I shall presently relate, I have subjected the Dung-beetle to far more serious trials than that of getting his ball into a hole; I have confronted him with much graver difficulties than that of mounting a slope, which is sheer sport to the obstinate Sisyphus, who seems to delight in the rough gymnastics involved in climbing steep places, [[15]]as if the ball thereby grew firmer and accordingly increased in value; I have created artificial situations in which the insect had the uttermost need of help; and never did my eyes detect any evidence of friendly services rendered by comrade to comrade. I have seen Beetles robbed and Beetles robbing and nothing more. If a number of them were gathered around the same pill, it meant that a battle was taking place. My humble opinion, therefore, is that the incident of a number of Scarabæi collected around the same ball with thieving intentions has given rise to these stories of comrades called in to lend a hand. Imperfect observations are responsible for this transformation of the bold highwayman into a helpful companion who has left his work to do another a friendly turn.
It is no light matter to attribute to an insect a really astonishing grasp of a situation, combined with an even more amazing power of communication between individuals of the same species. Such an admission involves more than one imagines. That is why I insist on my point. What! Are we to believe that a Beetle in distress will conceive the idea of going in quest of help? We are to imagine him flying off and scouring the country to find fellow-workers on some patch of dung; when he has found them, we are to suppose that he addresses them, in a sort of pantomime, by gestures with his antennæ more particularly, in some such words as these:
‘I say, you fellows, my load’s upset in a hole over there; come and help me get it out. I’ll do as much for you one day!’