The Sacred Beetle, and Others

by Jean-Henri Fabre

When the requisite size has been obtained, the pill-roller makes his way with his booty to the spot where the burrow is to be dug. The journey is effected exactly as it would be by the Sacred Beetle. Head downwards, hind-legs lifted against the rolling mechanism, the insect pushes backwards. So far there is nothing new, save for a certain slowness in the performance. But wait a little while: soon a striking difference in habits will separate the two insects.

As each pill is carted away, I seize it, together with its owner, and place both on the surface of a layer of fresh, close-packed sand in a flower-pot. A sheet of glass serves as a lid, keeps the sand nice and cool, prevents escape and admits the light. By interning each Beetle separately, I am saved from the mistakes which might arise if I put them in the common cage, where a number of my boarders are at work; and I shall not risk ascribing to several what may be the performance of one alone. By this solitary confinement, each individual Beetle’s work can be studied more easily.

The interned mother makes hardly any protest against her servitude. Soon she is digging the sand and disappears in it with her pill. Let us give her time to establish her quarters and to get on with her domestic labours.

Three or four weeks go by. The Beetle has not reappeared upon the surface, a proof of her patient absorption [[115]]in her maternal duties. At last I remove the contents of the pot, very carefully, layer by layer, until I uncover a spacious burrow. The rubbish from this cavity was heaped up on the surface, forming a little mound. This is the secret chamber, the gynæceum in which the mother now and for a long time to come keeps watch over her budding family.

The original pill has disappeared. In its stead are two little pears, elegantly shaped and wonderfully finished: two, not one, as I naturally expected from the information already in my possession. They strike me as being even more delicately and gracefully rounded than the Sacred Beetle’s. Perhaps their tiny dimensions cause my preference: maxime miranda in minimis. They measure 33 millimetres in length and 24 millimetres across their greatest width.[1] Let us drop figures and admit that the dumpy modeller, with her slow and awkward ways, is the artistic rival or even the superior of her famous kinswoman. I expected to see some clumsy apprentice; I find a consummate artificer. We must not judge people by appearances; it is a wise maxim, even when applied to insects.

If we examine the pot somewhat earlier, it will tell us how the pear is made. I find sometimes a perfectly round ball and a pear without any traces of the original pill; sometimes a ball only, with a nearly hemispherical remnant of the pill, a lump from which the materials subjected to modelling have been detached in one piece. The method of work can be deduced from these facts.

The pill which the Scarab fashions on the surface of the soil by taking armfuls from the heap encountered is but a temporary piece of work, which is given a round form with [[116]]the sole object of facilitating its transport. He gives his attention to it, no doubt, but is not unduly anxious about it; all that he wants is that the journey should be effected without any crumbling of his treasure or impediment in the rolling. The surface of the sphere, therefore, is not thoroughly treated; it is not compressed into a rind or made scrupulously even.

Underground, when it is a question of getting the egg’s casket ready, the casket that is to be both larder and cradle, it becomes another matter. An incision is made all round the pill, dividing it into two almost equal portions, and one half is subjected to manipulation, while the other lies just against it, destined to receive the same treatment later. The hemisphere worked upon is rounded into a ball, which will be the belly of the prospective pear. This time, the modelling is performed with the nicest care: the future of the larva, which also is exposed to the dangers of overdry bread, is at stake. The surface of the ball is therefore patted at one spot after the other, conscientiously hardened by compression and levelled along a regular curve. The spherule thus obtained possesses geometrical precision, or very nearly so. Let us not forget that this difficult work is accomplished without rolling, as the clean condition of the surface shows.

The rest of the business may be guessed from the proceedings of the Sacred Beetle. The sphere is hollowed into a crater and becomes a sort of bulging, shallow pot. The lips are drawn out into a pocket which receives the egg. The pocket is closed, polished outside and joined neatly to the sphere. The pear is finished. The other half of the pill is now similarly treated.

The notable feature of this work is the elegant regularity of the forms obtained without any rolling. Chance enables [[117]]me to add another and a most striking proof to the many that I have given of this modelling done on the spot. Once and once only I managed to get from the Broad-necked Scarab two pears closely soldered together by their bellies and lying in opposite directions. The first one constructed can teach us nothing new, but the second tells us this: when, for a reason that is not apparent, for lack of room perhaps, the insect left this second pear touching the other and soldered it to its neighbour while working at it, obviously, with this appendage, any rolling or any moving became impracticable. Nevertheless, the pretty shape was secured to perfection.