The Sacred Beetle, and Others

by Jean-Henri Fabre

And now let us unfold the authentic story, admitting as evidence only facts actually observed again and again. The Sacred Beetle’s nest is betrayed on the outside by a little heap of earth, by a tiny mound formed of the superfluous soil which the mother, when closing up the abode, has been unable to replace, part of the excavation having to be left empty. Under this mound is a shaft which is rarely more than four inches in depth, followed by a horizontal gallery, either straight or winding, which ends in a spacious hall, large enough to contain a man’s fist. This is the crypt in which the egg lies enveloped in food and subjected to the incubation of a hot sun baking the ground only a few inches above it; this is the roomy workshop in which the mother, unfettered in her movements, has kneaded and shaped the future nurseling’s food into a pear.

This stercoraceous bread has its main axis lying in a horizontal position. Its shape and size remind one exactly of those little Midsummer’s Day pears which, by virtue of their bright colouring, their flavour and their early ripening, are so popular with the children. There is a slight variation in the bulk of the pears found. The largest dimensions are 45 millimetres in length by 30 millimetres in width;[1] the smallest are 35 millimetres by 28.[2]

Without being as polished as stucco, the surface, which is absolutely even, is carefully glazed with a thin layer [[61]]of red earth. At first soft as potter’s clay, the pyriform loaf soon dries and acquires a stout crust which refuses to yield to the pressure of the fingers. Wood itself is no harder. This rind is the defensive wrapper that isolates the recluse from the world and allows him to consume his victuals in profound peace. But, should the central mass become dried up, then the danger is extremely serious. We shall have occasion to refer to the unhappy lot of the grub condemned to a diet of too stale bread.

What dough does the Scarab’s bakehouse use? Who are the purveyors? The Horse and the Mule? By no means. Yet that was what I expected—and so would anybody—after seeing the insect make such energetic raids, for its own use, upon the overflowing store of an ordinary lump of dung. That is where it habitually manufactures the rolling ball which it goes and consumes in some underground retreat.

While coarse bread, full of bits of hay, is good enough for the mother, she becomes more particular where her children are concerned. She now wants the very daintiest pastry, rich in nourishment and easily digested; she wants the ovine manna: not that which the Sheep of a costive habit scatters in trails of black olives, but that which, elaborated in a less dry intestine, is fashioned into a single flat cake. This is the material required, the dough exclusively used. It is no longer the poor and stringy produce of the Horse, but an unctuous, plastic, homogeneous thing, soaked through and through with nutritive juices. Its plasticity and delicacy make it an admirable medium for an artistic piece of work like the Scarab’s pear, while its alimentary qualities suit the weak stomach of the new-born grub. There may not [[62]]be much of it, but the infant Beetle will find it sufficient for his needs.

This explains the smallness of these pears, a point which made me suspicious of the origin of my treasure until I found the mother present with the provisions. I was unable to see in those little pears the bill of fare of a future Sacred Beetle, who is so great a glutton and of so remarkable a size.

It probably also explains my failure in the old days with my cages. In my profound ignorance of the Sacred Beetle’s domestic life, I used to supply her with what I could pick up here and there, droppings of Horse or Mule; and the Beetle refused it for her children and declined to build a nest. To-day, taught by my experience in the fields, I go to the Sheep for my supplies and all is well in the cages. Does this mean that the insect never employs for its breeding-pears materials derived from the Horse, even if selected from the finest strata and carefully cleansed from objectionable matter? If the best cannot be obtained, is the middling refused? I prefer to be cautious and give no opinion. What I can declare is that I inspected over a hundred burrows with a view to writing this story, and that in every case, from first to last, the larva’s provisions had been obtained from the Sheep.

Where is the egg in that nutritive mass so novel in shape? One would be inclined to place it in the centre of the fat, round paunch. This central point is best protected against accidents from the outside, best off in the matter of temperature. Besides, the nascent grub would here find a deep layer of food on every side of it and would not be liable to make mistakes in the first mouthfuls. Everything being of the same kind all [[63]]round it, there would be no necessity for it to pick and choose; wherever it chanced to apply its prentice tooth, it could continue without hesitation its first dainty repast.

All this sounds so very rational that I allowed myself to be led away by it. In the first pear that I examined, layer by layer, shaving off slices with my penknife, I looked for the egg in the centre of the paunch, feeling almost certain of finding it there. To my great surprise, it was not there. Instead of being hollow, the centre of the pear is full and consists of one continuous uniform alimentary mass.

My deductions, which any observer in my place would certainly have shared, seemed very reasonable; the Scarab, however, is of another way of thinking. We have our logic, of which we are rather proud; the dung-kneader has hers, which is better than ours in this instance. She has her own foresight, takes her own precautions; and she places the egg elsewhere.