The Sacred Beetle, and Others

by Jean-Henri Fabre

Having learnt what I want to know about the insect’s method of warehousing its provisions, I leave it to its work, which continues for the best part of the night. On the following days, nothing happens; the Copris goes out no more. Enough treasure has been laid up in a single night. Let us wait a while and leave her time to stow away her stuff as she pleases.

Before the week is out, I dig up the soil in my insect-house and bring to light the burrow whose victualling I have been watching. As in the fields, it is a spacious hall with an irregular, elliptic roof and an almost level floor. In a corner is a round hole, similar to the orifice in the neck of a bottle. This is the goods-entrance, opening on a slanting gallery that runs up to the surface of the soil. The walls of this house, which was hollowed out of fresh earth, have been carefully compressed and are strong enough to resist any seismic disturbances caused by my excavations. It is easy to see that the insect, toiling for the future, has put forth all its skill, all its digging-powers, in order to produce lasting work. The banqueting-tent may be a hole hurriedly scooped out, with irregular and none too stable walls, but the permanent dwelling is of larger dimensions and much more carefully built. [[132]]

I suspect that both sexes have a share in this architectural masterpiece; at least, I often come upon the pair in the burrows destined for the laying of the eggs. The roomy and luxurious apartment was no doubt once the wedding-hall; the marriage was consummated under the mighty dome in the building of which the lover had cooperated: a gallant way of declaring his passion. I also suspect him of lending his partner a hand with the collecting and storing of the provisions. From what I have gathered, he too, strong as he is, shares in this finicking work, collects his armfuls and descends into the crypt. It is a quicker job when there are two to help. But, once the home is well stocked, he retires discreetly, makes his way back to the surface and goes and settles down elsewhere, leaving the mother to her delicate task. His part in the family-mansion is ended.

Now what do we find in this mansion, to which we have seen so many tiny loads of provisions lowered? A mass of small pieces, heaped together anyhow? Not a bit of it. I always find a simple lump, a huge loaf which fills the dwelling except for a narrow passage all round, just wide enough to give the mother room to move.

This sumptuous portion, a regular Twelfth-Night cake, has no fixed shape. I come across some that are ovoid, suggesting a Turkey’s egg in form and size; I find some that are a flattened ellipsoid, similar to the common onion; I discover some that are almost round, reminding me of a Dutch cheese; I see some that are circular with a slight swelling on the upper surface, like the loaves of the Provençal peasant or, better still, the egg-cake, the fougasso à l’iôu with which he celebrates Easter. In every case the surface is smooth and nicely curved. [[133]]

There is no mistaking what has happened: the mother has collected and kneaded into one lump the numerous fragments brought down one after the other; out of all those particles she has made a homogeneous thing, by mashing them, working them together and treading on them. Time after time I come across the baker on top of the colossal loaf which makes the Sacred Beetle’s pill look so insignificant; she strolls about on the convex surface, which sometimes measures as much as four inches across; she pats the mass, makes it firm and level. I just catch sight of the curious scene, for, the moment she is perceived, the pastry-cook slips down the curved slope and hides away under her cake.

For a further knowledge of the work, for a study of its innermost detail, we shall have to resort to artifice. There is scarcely any difficulty about it. Either my long practice with the Sacred Beetle has made me more skilful in my methods of research, or else the Copris is less reserved and bears the rigours of captivity more philosophically: at any rate, I succeed, without the slightest trouble, in following all the phases of the nest-making to my heart’s content.

I employ two methods, each of them adapted for enlightening me on some special points. Whenever the vivarium supplies me with a few large cakes, I take these out of the burrows, together with the mother Copris, and place them in my study. The receptacles are of two sorts, according to whether I want light or darkness. In the former case, I use glass jars with a diameter more or less the same as that of the burrows, say four to five inches. At the bottom of each is a thin layer of fresh sand, quite insufficient to allow the Copris to bury herself in it, but still serving the purpose of sparing the insect the slippery [[134]]foothold of the actual glass and giving it the illusion of a soil similar to that of which I have just deprived it. With this layer the jar becomes a suitable cage for the mother and her loaf.

I need hardly say that the startled insect would not undertake anything while light prevailed, no matter how dim and tempered. It must have complete darkness, which I produce by means of a cardboard sheath enclosing the jar. By carefully raising this sheath a little, I can surprise the captive at her work whenever I feel inclined, the light in my study being a shaded one, and even watch operations for a time. The reader will notice that this arrangement is much less complex than that which I used when I wished to see the Sacred Beetle engaged in modelling her pear, the simpler method being made possible by the different temperament of the Copris, who is more easy-going than her kinswoman. A dozen of these eclipsed appliances are thus arranged on my large laboratory-table. Any one seeing them standing in a row would take them for a collection of groceries in whity-brown paper bags.

For my dark apparatus I use flower-pots filled with fresh, well-packed sand. The mother and her cake occupy the lower part, which is adapted as a niche by means of a cardboard screen forming a ceiling and supporting the sand above. Or else I simply put the mother on the surface of the sand with a supply of provisions. She digs herself a burrow, does her warehousing, makes herself a home; and things follow the usual course. In all cases I rely upon a sheet of glass, which does duty as a lid, to keep my prisoners safe. These different devices will, I trust, give me information on a delicate point of which I will say more later. [[135]]