It is exceedingly probable that exactly the same thing happens underground as in the jars. To make certain, I inspect some of my appliances at different periods. I always find the mother beside her pills, in a spacious cave which gives free play to the watcher’s evolutions. She could go lower down in the sand and hide anywhere she pleased, if rest is what she wants; she could climb outside and sit down to fresh victuals, if refreshment became necessary. Neither the prospects of rest in a deeper crypt nor the thought of the sun and of nice soft rolls make her leave her family. Until the last of her offspring has burst his shell, she sticks to her post in the birth-chamber.
It is now October. The rains so greatly desired by man and beast have come at last, soaking the ground to some depth. After the torrid and dusty days of summer, when life is in suspense, we have the coolness that revives it, we have the last festival of the year. In the midst of the [[168]]heath putting out its first pink bells, the oronge[9] splits its white purse and comes into view, looking like the yolk of an egg half deprived of its albumen; the massive purple boletus turns blue under the heel of the passer-by who crushes it; the autumnal squill lifts its little spike of lilac flowers; the strawberry-tree’s coral balls begin to soften.
This tardy springtime has its echoes underground. The vernal generations, Sacred Beetles and Gymnopleuri, Onthophagi and Copres, hasten to burst their shells softened by the damp and come to the surface to take part in the gaieties of the last fine weather.
My captives are denied the friendly shower. The cement of their caskets, baked by the summer heat, is too hard to yield. The file of the shield and legs would make no impression on it. I come to the poor things’ assistance. A carefully graduated watering replaces the natural rain in my glass and earthenware pots. To ascertain once more the effects of water on the Dung-beetles’ deliverance, I leave a few of the receptacles in the state of dryness for which they have to thank the dog-days.
The result of my sprinkling soon becomes apparent. In a few days’ time, now in one jar, now in another, the pills, properly softened, open and fall to pieces under the prisoner’s efforts. The new-born Copris appears and sits down, with his mother, to the food which I have placed at his disposal.
When the hermit, stiffening his legs and humping his back, tries to split the ceiling that presses down on him, does the mother come to his assistance by delivering an assault from the outside? It is quite possible. The [[169]]watcher, hitherto so careful of her brood, so attentive to what is happening within the pills, can hardly fail to hear the sounds made by the captive in his struggles to emerge.
We have seen her indefatigably stopping the holes caused by my indiscretion; we have seen her, often enough, restoring for the grub’s greater safety the pill which I had opened with my penknife. Fitted by instinct for repairing and building, why should she not be fitted for demolishing? However, I will make no assertions, for I have been unable to see. The favourable conditions always escaped me: I came either too late or too early. And then let us not forget that the admission of light usually interrupts the work.
In the darkness of the sand-filled pots, the liberation must take place in the same way. All that I am able to witness is the insect’s emergence above ground. Attracted by the smell of fresh provisions which I have served on the threshold of the burrow, the newly-released family emerge gradually, accompanied by the mother, wander round for a time under the pane of glass and then attack the pile.
There are three or four of them, five at most. The sons are easily recognized by the greater length of their horns; but there is nothing to distinguish the daughters from the mother. For that matter, the same confusion prevails among themselves. An abrupt change of attitude has taken place; and the erstwhile devoted mother is now utterly indifferent to the welfare of her emancipated family. Henceforward each looks after his own home and his own interests. They no longer know one another.
In the receptacles which are not moistened by artificial showers, things come to a miserable end. The dry shell, almost as hard as an apricot- or peach-stone, offers indomitable resistance. The insect’s legs manage to grate [[170]]off barely so much as a pinch of dust. I hear the tools rasping against the unyielding wall; then silence follows and not a prisoner survives to tell the tale. The mother too perishes in that home which has remained dry when the season for dryness has passed. The Copris, like the Sacred Beetle, needs the rain to soften the granite shell.