The Sacred Beetle, and Others

by Jean-Henri Fabre

I make my first excavation in the middle of June and am delighted with what my knife gradually lays bare as it cuts up the soil in thin slices. Each couple has dug itself a splendid vaulted room in the sand, more spacious than any that the Sacred Beetle or the Spanish Copris ever showed me and with a bolder arch. The greatest breadth is fully six inches; but the ceiling is very low, rising to hardly two inches.

The contents correspond with the extravagant dimensions of the hall. They form a dish worthy of the wedding of Camacho the Rich, a cake as broad as one’s hand, of no great thickness and varying in outline. I have found them oval-shaped, kidney-shaped, shaped like a Starfish, with short, thick rays, and long and pointed, like a Cat’s tongue. These minor details represent the pastry-cook’s fancies. The essential and constant fact is this: in the six bakeries of my insect-house, the sexes are always both present beside the lump of paste, which, after being kneaded according to rule, is now fermenting and maturing.

What does this long cohabitation prove? It proves that the father has taken part in digging the cellar, in storing the victuals gathered by separate armfuls on the threshold of the door, and in kneading all the scraps into a single lump, which is more likely to improve by [[250]]keeping. Were he a useless, idle incubus, he would not stay there, he would go back to the surface. The father therefore is a diligent fellow-worker. His assistance even looks as if it ought to extend farther still. We shall see.

Dear insects, my curiosity has disturbed your housekeeping. But you were only starting, you were having your house-warming, so to speak. Perhaps you may be able to make good the damage which I have wrought. Let us try. I will restore the condition of the establishment by supplying fresh provisions. It is for you now to dig new burrows, to carry down the wherewithal to replace the cake of which I have robbed you, and afterwards to divide the lump, improved by time, into rations suited to the needs of your larvæ. Will you do all this? I hope so.

My faith in the perseverance of the sorely-tried couples is not disappointed. A month later, in the middle of July, I venture on a second inspection. The cellars have been rebuilt, as spacious as at first. Moreover, by this time they are padded with a soft lining of dung on the floor and on a part of the side-walls. The two sexes are still there; they will not separate until the rearing is completed. The father, who has less family-affection, or perhaps is more timid, tries to steal off by the back-way as the light enters the shattered dwelling; the mother, squatting on her precious pellets, does not budge. These pellets are oval-shaped plums, very like those of the Spanish Copris, but not quite so large.

Knowing how few compose the latter’s collection, I am greatly surprised at the sight that now meets my eyes. In a single cell I count seven or eight ovoids, standing one against the other and lifting up their nippled [[251]]tops, each with its hatching-chamber. Notwithstanding its size, the hall is cram-full; there is hardly room left for the two guardians to move about. It may be compared with a bird’s nest containing its eggs and no empty spaces.

The comparison is inevitable. What indeed are the Copris’ pills but eggs of another sort, in which the nutritive mass of the white and the yolk is replaced by a pot of preserved foodstuffs? Here the Dung-beetles rival the birds and even surpass them. Instead of producing from within themselves, merely by the mysterious processes of nature, that which will provide for the latter growth of their young, they are actively and openly industrious, and by dint of their own skill provide food for their grubs which will achieve the adult form without other assistance. They know nothing of the long and tortuous process of incubation; the sun is their incubator. They have not the continual worry of providing food, for they prepare this in advance and make only one distribution. But they never leave the nest. Their watch is incessant. Father and mother, those vigilant guardians, do not quit the house until the family is fit to sally forth.

The father’s usefulness is manifest so long as there is a house to dig and wealth to amass; it is less evident when the mother is cutting up her loaf into rations, shaping her ovoids, polishing them and watching over them. Can it be that the cavalier also takes part in this delicate task, which would rather seem to be a feminine monopoly? Is he able, with his sharp leg, to slice up the cake, to remove from it the requisite quantity for a larva’s sustenance and to round the piece into a sphere, thus shortening the work, which could be revised and perfected by the mother? Does he know [[252]]the art of stopping up chinks, of repairing breaches, of soldering slits, of scraping pellets and clearing them of any dangerous vegetable matter? Does he show the brood the same attentions which the mother lavishes by herself in the burrows of the Spanish Copris? Here the two sexes are together. Do they both take part in bringing up the family?

I tried to obtain an answer by installing a couple of Lunary Copres in a glass jar screened by a cardboard sheath, which enabled me readily and quickly to produce light or darkness. When suddenly surprised, the male was perched upon the pellets almost as often as the female; but, whereas the mother would frequently go on with her ticklish nursery-work, polishing the pellets with the flat of her leg and feeling and sounding them, the father, more cowardly and less engrossed in his duties, would drop down as soon as the daylight was admitted and run away to hide in some corner of the heap. There is no way of seeing him at work, so quick is he to shun the unwelcome light.

Still, though he refused to display his talents on my behalf, his very presence on the top of the ovoids betrays them. Not for nothing was he in that uncomfortable attitude, so ill-adapted to an idler’s slumbers. He was then watching like his companion, touching up the damaged parts, listening through the walls of the shells to find out how the youngsters were progressing. The little that I saw assures me that the father almost rivals the mother in domestic solicitude until the family is finally emancipated.