The Sacred Beetle, and Others

by Jean-Henri Fabre

Then what is the object here of the globular form, the best preventative of desiccation during the heat of summer? This property of the sphere and of its near neighbour, the ovoid, is an accepted physical fact; but it is only by accident that these shapes are the right ones to overcome that difficulty. A creature built for rolling balls across the fields goes on making balls underground. If the grub fare all the better for finding tender foodstuffs under its mandibles to the very end, that is a capital thing for the grub, but it is no reason why we should extol the instinct of the mother.

So I argued, saying to myself that, before I was convinced, I should need to be shown a Dung-beetle who was utterly unfamiliar with the pill-making business in everyday life and who yet, when laying-time was at hand, made an abrupt change in her habits and shaped her provisions into a ball. My Dung-beetle would have to be a good fat one too. Is there any such in my neighbourhood? Yes, there is; and she is one of the handsomest and largest, next to the Sacred Beetle. I speak of the Spanish Copris (C. hispanus, Lin.), who is so remarkable on account of the sharp slope of her corselet and the disproportionate size of the horn surmounting her head.

Round and squat, the Spanish Copris with her ponderous gait is certainly a stranger to gymnastics such as are performed by the Sacred Beetle or the Gymnopleurus. Her legs, which are of insignificant length and folded [[129]]under her belly at the slightest alarm, bear no comparison with the stilts of the pill-rollers. Their stunted form and lack of flexibility are enough in themselves to tell us that their owner would not care to roam about hampered by a rolling ball.

The Copris is indeed of a sedentary habit. Once he has found his provisions, at night or in the evening twilight, he digs a burrow under the heap. It is a rough cavern, large enough to hold an apple. Here is introduced, bit by bit, the stuff that is just over his head or at any rate lying on the threshold of the cavern; here is engulfed, in no definite shape, an enormous supply of victuals, bearing eloquent witness to the insect’s gluttony. As long as the hoard lasts, the Copris, engrossed in the pleasures of the table, does not return to the surface. The home is not abandoned until the larder is emptied, when the insect recommences its nocturnal quest, finds a new treasure and scoops out another temporary dwelling.

As his trade is merely that of a gatherer of manure, shovelling in the stuff without any preliminary manipulation, the Copris is evidently quite ignorant, for the time being, of the art of kneading and modelling a globular loaf. Besides, his short, clumsy legs seem utterly irreconcilable with any such art.

In May, or June at latest, comes laying-time. The insect, so ready to fill its own belly with the most sordid materials, becomes particular where the portion of its family is concerned. Like the Sacred Beetle, like the Gymnopleurus, it now wants the soft produce of the Sheep, deposited in a single slab. Even when abundant, the cake is buried on the spot in its entirety. Not a trace of it remains outside. Economy demands that it be collected to the very last crumb. [[130]]

You see: no travelling, no carting, no preparations. The cake is carried down to the cellar by armfuls, at the very spot where it lies. The insect repeats, with an eye to its grubs, what it did when working for itself. As for the burrow, whose presence is indicated by a good-sized mound, it is a roomy cavern excavated to a depth of some eight inches. I observe that it is more spacious and better built than the temporary abodes occupied by the Copris at times of revelry.

But let us turn from the insect in its wild state to the insect in captivity. In the former case the evidence furnished by chance encounters would be incomplete, fragmentary and of dubious relevancy; and we shall do better to watch the Copris in my insect-house, especially as she lends herself admirably to this sort of observation. Let us observe the storing first.

In the soft evening light I see her appear on the threshold of her burrow. She has come up from the depths, she is going to gather in her harvest. She has not far to go: the provisions are there, outside the door, a generous supply which I am careful to replenish. Cautiously, ready to retreat at the least alarm, she makes her way to them with a slow and measured step. Her shield does the rummaging and dissecting, her fore-legs are busy extracting. An armful, quite a modest one, is pulled away, crumbling to pieces. The Copris drags it backwards and disappears underground. In less than two minutes, she is back again. With feathery antennæ outspread, she warily scans the neighbourhood before crossing the threshold of her dwelling.

A distance of two or three inches separates her from the heap of provisions. It is a serious matter for her to venture so far. She would have liked the victuals to be [[131]]exactly overhead, forming a roof to her house. That would have saved her from having to make these expeditions, which are a source of anxiety. I have decided otherwise. To facilitate observation, I have placed the supplies just on one side. By degrees the nervous creature is reassured; it becomes accustomed to the open air and to my presence, which, of course, I make as unobtrusive as possible. Armful after armful goes down into the cellar. They are always shapeless bits, shreds such as one might pick off with a small pair of pincers.