What do the glass jars covered with an opaque sheath teach us? A good many things, all of them interesting, and this to begin with: the big loaf does not owe its curve—which is always regular, no matter how much the actual shape may vary—to any rolling process. Our inspection of the natural burrow has already told us that so large a mass could not have been rolled into a cavity of which it fills almost the whole space. Besides, the strength of the insect would be unequal to moving so great a load.
From time to time I go to the jar for information and on every occasion the same evidence is forthcoming. I see the mother, hoisted on top of the lump, feeling here, feeling there, bestowing little taps, smoothing away the projecting points, perfecting the thing; never do I catch her looking as though she wanted to turn the block. It is clear as daylight: rolling has nothing whatever to do with the matter.
The dough-maker’s assiduity, her patient care make me suspect an industrial detail whereof I was far from dreaming. Why so many after-touches to the mass, why so long a wait before making use of it? It is, in fact, a week or more before the insect, still busy with its pressing and polishing, makes up its mind to do something with its hoard.
When the baker has kneaded his dough to the requisite extent, he collects it into a single lump in a corner of the kneading-trough. The leaven will work better in the depths of the voluminous mass. The Copris knows this bakehouse secret. She heaps together all that she has collected in her foraging; she carefully kneads the whole into a provisional loaf and allows it time to improve by virtue of an internal process that gives flavour to the paste [[136]]and makes it of the right consistency for subsequent manipulations. As long as this chemical process remains unfinished, both the baker and the Copris wait. In the case of the insect, it goes on for some time, a week at least.
At last it is ready. The baker’s man divides his lump into smaller lumps, each of which will become a loaf. The Copris does the same thing. By means of a circular cut made with the sharp edge of her forehead and the saw of her fore-legs, she detaches from the mass a piece of the prescribed size. With this stroke there is no hesitation, no after-touches adding a bit here and taking off a bit there. Straight away and with one sharp, decisive cut, she obtains the proper-sized lump.
It now becomes a question of shaping it. Clasping it as best she can in her short arms, so little adapted, one would think, to work of this kind, the Copris rounds her lump of dough by means of pressure and of pressure only. Gravely she moves about on the still shapeless pill, climbs up, climbs down, turns to right and left, above and below; here she methodically applies a little more pressure, there a little less, touching and retouching with unvarying patience, and finally, after twenty-four hours of it, the piece that was all corners has become a perfect sphere, the size of a plum. There, in her crowded studio, with scarcely room to move, the podgy artist has completed her work without once shaking it on its base; by dint of time and patience she has obtained the geometrical sphere which her clumsy tools and her confined space seemed bound to deny her.
For a long time the insect continues to touch up its globe, polishing it affectionately, passing its foot gently to and fro until the least protuberance has disappeared. These meticulous finishing touches seem endless. Towards [[137]]the end of the second day, however, the sphere is pronounced satisfactory. The mother climbs to the dome of her edifice and there, still by simple pressure, hollows out a shallow crater. In this basin the egg is laid.
Then, with extreme caution, with a delicacy that is most surprising with such rough tools, the lips of the crater are brought together so as to form a vaulted roof over the egg. The mother turns slowly, does a little raking, draws the stuff upwards and finishes the closing-process. This is the most ticklish work of all. A little too much pressure, a miscalculated thrust might easily jeopardize the life of the germ under its thin ceiling.
Every now and then the mother suspends operations. Motionless, with lowered forehead, she seems to be sounding the cavity beneath, to be listening to what is happening inside. All’s well, it seems; and once again she resumes her patient toil: the careful, delicate scraping of the sides towards the summit, which begins to taper a little and lengthen out. In this way an ovoid with the small end uppermost takes the place of the original sphere. Under the more or less projecting nipple is the hatching-chamber with the egg. Twenty-four hours more are spent in this minute work. Total: four times round the clock and sometimes longer to construct the sphere, scoop out a basin, lay the egg and shut it in by transforming the sphere into an ovoid.
The insect goes back to the cut loaf and helps itself to a second slice, which, by the same manipulations as before, becomes an ovoid tenanted by an egg. The surplus suffices for a third ovoid, sometimes even for a fourth. I have never seen this number exceeded when the mother had at her disposal only the materials which she had accumulated in the burrow. [[138]]