THE WORKS OF J. H. FABRE
THE
SACRED BEETLE
AND OTHERS
BY
J. HENRI FABRE
Translated by
ALEXANDER TEIXEIRA DE MATTOS, F.Z.S.
WITH A PREFACE BY THE AUTHOR
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO
AUTHOR’S PREFACE
In the building of the nest, the family safeguard, we see the highest
manifestation of the faculties of instinct. That clever architect, the
bird, teaches us as much; and the insect, with its still more diverse
talents, repeats the lesson, telling us that maternity is the supreme
inspirer of instinct. Entrusted with the preservation of the species,
which is of more importance than the preservation of individuals,
maternity awakens in the drowsiest intelligence marvellous gleams of
foresight; it is the thrice sacred hearth where are kindled those
mysterious psychic fires which will suddenly burst into flame and
dazzle us with their semblance of infallible reason. The more maternity
asserts itself, the higher does instinct ascend.
In this respect no creatures are more deserving of our attention than
the Hymenoptera, upon whom the cares of maternity devolve in their
fulness. All these favourites of instinct prepare board and lodging for
their offspring. They become master-craftsmen in a host of trades for
the sake of a family which their faceted eyes will never behold, but
which is nevertheless no stranger to the mother’s powers of foresight.
One turns cotton-spinner and produces cotton-wool bottles; another sets
up as a basket-maker and weaves hampers out of bits of leaves; a third
becomes a mason and builds rooms of cement and domes of road-metal; a
fourth opens pottery-works, where clay is kneaded into shapely vases
and rounded pots; yet another goes in for mining and digs mysterious
underground chambers in the warm, moist earth. A thousand trades
similar to ours and often even unknown to our industrial system enter
into the preparation of the abode. Next come the provisions for the
expected nurselings: piles of honey, loaves of pollen, stores of game,
preserved by a cunning paralysing-process. In such works as these,
having the future of the family for their sole object, the highest
manifestations of instinct are displayed under the stimulus of
maternity.
So far as the rest of the insect race is concerned, the mother’s cares
are generally most summary. In the majority of cases, all that is done
is to lay the eggs in a favourable spot, where the larva, at its own
risk and peril, can find bed and breakfast. With such rustic ideas upon
the upbringing of the offspring, talents are superfluous. Lycurgus
banished the arts from his republic on the ground that they were
enervating. In like manner the higher inspirations of instinct have no
home among insects reared in the Spartan fashion. The mother scorns the
sweet task of the nurse; and the psychic prerogatives, which are the
best of all, diminish and disappear, so true is it that, with animals
as with ourselves, the family is a source of perfection.
While the Hymenopteron, so extremely thoughtful of her progeny, fills
us with wonder, the others, which abandon theirs to the accidents of
good luck or bad, must seem to us, by comparison, of little interest.
These others form almost the whole of the entomological race; at least,
among the fauna of our country-sides, there is, to my knowledge, only
one other example of insects preparing board and lodging for their
family, as do the gatherers of honey and the buriers of well-filled
game-bags.
And, strange to say, these insects vying in maternal solicitude with
the flower-despoiling tribe of Bees are none other than the
Dung-beetles, the dealers in ordure, the scavengers of the
cattle-fouled meadows. We must pass from the scented blossoms of our
flower-beds to the Mule-dung of our high-roads to find a second
instance of devoted mothers and lofty instincts. Nature abounds in
these antitheses. What are our ugliness or beauty, our cleanliness or
dirt to her? Out of filth, she creates the flower; from a little
manure, she extracts the thrice-blessed grain of wheat.
Notwithstanding their disgusting occupation, the Dung-beetles are of a
very respectable standing. Their size, which is generally imposing;
their severe and immaculately glossy attire; their portly bodies,
thickset and compact; the quaint ornamentation of brow or thorax: all
combined make them cut an excellent figure in the collector’s boxes,
especially when to our home species, oftenest of an ebon black, we add
a few tropical varieties, a-glitter with gleams of gold and flashes of
burnished copper.
They are the sedulous attendants of our herds, for which reason several
of them are faintly redolent of benzoic acid, the aromatic of the
Sheep-folds. Their pastoral habits have impressed the nomenclators, too
often, alas, careless of euphony, who this time have changed their tune
and headed their descriptions with such names as Melibœus, Tityrus,
Amyntas, Corydon, Mopsus and Alexis. We find here the whole series of
bucolic appellations made famous by the poets of antiquity. Virgil’s
eclogues have lent their vocabulary for the Dung-beetles’
glorification. We should have to go back to the Butterflies with their
dainty graces to find an equally poetic nomenclature. In their case the
epic names of the Iliad ring out, borrowed from the camps of Greek and
Trojan and perhaps too magnificently bellicose for those peaceable
winged flowers whose habits in no wise recall the martial deeds of an
Ajax or an Achilles. Much better-imagined is the bucolic title given to
the Dung-beetles: it tells us the insect’s chief characteristic, its
predilection for pasture-lands.
The dung-manipulators have as head of their line the Sacred Beetle or
Scarab, whose strange behaviour had already attracted the attention of
the fellah in the valley of the Nile, some thousand years before the
Christian era. As he watered his patch of onions in the spring, the
Egyptian peasant would see from time to time a fat black insect pass
close by, hurriedly trundling a ball of Camel-dung backwards. He would
watch the queer rolling thing in amazement, even as the Provençal
peasant watches it to this day.
No one fails to be surprised when he first finds himself in the
presence of the Scarab, who, with his head down and his long hind-legs
in the air, pushes with might and main his huge pill, the source of so
many awkward tumbles. Undoubtedly the simple fellah, on beholding this
spectacle, wondered what that ball could be, what object the black
creature could have in rolling it along with such vigour. The peasant
of to-day asks himself the same question.
In the days of the Rameses and Thothmes, superstition had something to
say in the matter; men saw in the rolling sphere an image of the world
performing its daily revolution; and the Scarab received divine
honours: in memory of his ancient glory, he continues the Sacred Beetle
of the modern naturalists.
It is six or seven thousand years since the curious pill-maker first
got himself talked about: are his habits thoroughly familiar to us yet?
Do we know the exact use for which he intends his ball, do we know how
he rears his family? Not at all. The most authoritative works
perpetuate the grossest errors where he is concerned.
Ancient Egypt used to say that the Scarab rolls his ball from east to
west, the direction in which the world turns. He next buries it
underground for twenty-eight days, the period of a lunary revolution.
This four weeks’ incubation quickens the pill-maker’s progeny. On the
twenty-ninth day, which the insect knows to be that of the conjunction
of the sun and moon and of the birth of the world, he goes back to his
buried ball; he digs it up, opens it and throws it into the Nile. That
completes the cycle. Immersion in the sacred waters causes a Scarab to
emerge from the ball.
Let us not laugh overmuch at these Pharaonic stories: they contain a
modicum of truth mingled with the fantastic theories of astrology.
Moreover, a good deal of the laughter would recoil upon our own
science, for the fundamental error of regarding as the Scarab’s cradle
the ball which we see rolling across the fields still lingers in our
text-books. All the authors who write about the Sacred Beetle repeat
it; the tradition has come down to us intact from the far-off days when
the Pyramids were built.
It is a good thing from time to time to wield the hatchet in the
overgrown thicket of tradition; it is well to shake off the yoke of
accepted ideas. It is possible that, cleansed of its obscuring dross,
truth may at last shine forth resplendent, far greater and more
wonderful than the things which we were taught. I have sometimes
harboured these rash doubts; and I have no reason to regret it, notably
in the case of the Scarab. To-day I know the sacred pill-roller’s story
thoroughly; and the reader shall see how much more marvellous it is
than the tales handed down to us by the old Egyptians.
The early chapters of my investigations into the nature of instinct [1]
have already proved, in the most categorical fashion, that the round
pellets rolled hither and thither along the ground by the insect do not
and indeed cannot contain germs. They are not habitations for the egg
and the grub; they are provisions which the Sacred Beetle hurriedly
removes from the madding crowd in order to bury them and consume them
at leisure in a subterranean dining-room.
Nearly forty years have elapsed since I used eagerly to collect the
materials to support my iconoclastic assertions on the Plateau des
Angles, near Avignon; and nothing has happened to invalidate my
statements; far from it: everything has corroborated them. The
incontestable proof came at last when I obtained the Scarab’s nest, a
genuine nest this time, gathered in such quantities as I wished and in
some cases even shaped before my eyes.
I have described my former vain attempts to find the larva’s abode; I
have described the pitiful failure of my efforts at rearing under
cover; and perhaps the reader commiserated my woes when he saw me on
the outskirts of the town stealthily and ingloriously gathering in a
paper bag the donation dropped by a passing Mule for my charges.
Certainly, as things were, my task was no easy one. My boarders, who
were great consumers, or more correctly speaking great wasters, used to
beguile the tedium of captivity by indulging in art for art’s sake in
the glad sunshine. Pill followed on pill, all beautifully rounded, to
be abandoned unused after a few exercises in rolling. The heap of
provisions, which I had so painfully acquired in the friendly shadow of
the gloaming, was squandered with disheartening rapidity; and there
came a time when the daily bread failed. Moreover, the stringy manna
falling from the Horse and the Mule is hardly suited to the mother’s
work, as I learned afterwards. Something more homogeneous, more plastic
is needed; and this only the Sheep’s somewhat laxer bowels are able to
supply.
In short, though my earlier studies taught me all about the Scarab’s
public manners, for several reasons they told me nothing of his private
habits. The nest-building problem remained as obscure as ever. Its
solution demands a good deal more than the straitened resources of a
town and the scientific equipment of a laboratory. It requires
prolonged residence in the country; it requires the proximity of flocks
and herds in the bright sunshine. Given these conditions, success is
assured, provided that one have zeal and perseverance; and these
conditions I find to perfection in my quiet village.
Provisions, my great difficulty in the old days, are now to be had for
the asking. Close to my house, Mules pass along the high-road, on their
way to the fields and back again; morning and evening, flocks of Sheep
go by, making for the pasture or the fold; not five yards from my door,
my neighbour’s Goat is tethered: I can hear her bleating as she nibbles
away at her ring of grass. Moreover, should food be scarce in my
immediate vicinity, there are always youthful purveyors who, lured by
visions of lollipops, are ready to scour the country to collect
victuals for my Beetles.
They arrive, not one but a dozen, bringing their contributions in the
queerest of receptacles. In this novel procession of gift-bearers, any
concave thing that chances to be handy is employed: the crown of an old
hat, a broken tile, a bit of stove-pipe, the bottom of a spinning-top,
a fragment of a basket, an old shoe hardened into a sort of boat, at a
pinch the collector’s own cap.
‘It’s prime stuff this time,’ their shining eyes seem to proclaim.
‘It’s something extra special.’
The goods are duly approved and paid for on the spot, as agreed. To
close the transaction in a fitting manner, I take the victuallers to
the cages and show them the Beetle rolling his pill. They gaze in
wonder at the funny creature that looks as if it were playing with its
ball; they laugh at its tumbles and scream with delight at its clumsy
struggles when it comes to grief and lies on its back kicking. A
charming sight, especially when the lollipops bulging in the
youngsters’ cheeks are just beginning to melt deliciously. Thus the
zeal of my little collaborators is kept alive. There is no fear of my
boarders starving: their larder will be lavishly supplied.
Who are these boarders? Well, first and foremost the Sacred Beetle, the
chief subject of my present investigations. Sérignan’s long screen of
hills might well mark his extreme northern boundary. Here ends the
Mediterranean flora, whose last ligneous representatives are the
arboraceous heather and the arbutus-tree; and here, in all probability,
the mighty pill-maker, a passionate lover of the sun, terminates his
arctic explorations. He abounds on the hot slopes facing the south and
in the narrow belt of plain sheltered by that powerful reflector.
According to all appearances, the elegant Gallic Bolboceras and the
stalwart Spanish Copris likewise stop at this line; for both are as
sensitive to cold as he. To these curious Dung-beetles, whose private
habits are so little known, let us add the Gymnopleuri, the Minotaur,
the Geotrupes, the Onthophagi. They are all welcomed in my cages, for
all, I am convinced beforehand, have surprises in store for us in the
details of their underground business.
My cages have a capacity of about a cubic yard. Except for the front,
which is of wire gauze, the whole is made of wood. This keeps out any
excessive rain, the effect of which would be to turn the layer of earth
in my open-air appliances into mud. Over-great moisture would be fatal
to the prisoners, who cannot, in their straitened artificial demesne,
act as they do when at liberty and prolong their digging indefinitely
until they come upon a medium suitable to their operations. They want
soil which is porous and not too dry, though in no danger of ever
becoming muddy. The earth in the cages therefore is of a sandy
character and, after being sifted, is slightly moistened and flattened
down just enough to prevent any landslips in the future galleries. Its
depth is barely ten or eleven inches, which is insufficient in certain
cases; but those of the inmates who have a fancy for deep galleries,
like the Geotrupes for instance, are well able to make up horizontally
for what is denied them perpendicularly.
The trellised front has a south aspect and allows the sun’s rays to
penetrate right into the dwelling. The opposite side, which faces
north, consists of two shutters one above the other. They are movable
and are kept in place by hooks or bolts. The top one opens for food to
be distributed and for the cleaning of the cage; it is the kitchen-door
for everyday use. It is also the entrance-gate for any new captives
whom I succeed in bagging. The bottom shutter, which keeps the layer of
earth in position, is opened only on great occasions, when we want to
surprise the insect in its home life and to ascertain the condition of
the progress underground. Then the bolts are drawn; the board, which is
on hinges, falls; and a vertical section of the soil is laid bare,
giving us an excellent opportunity of studying the Dung-beetles’ work.
Our examination is made with the point of a knife and has to be
conducted with the utmost care. In this way we get with precision and
without difficulty industrial details which could not always be
obtained by laborious digging in the open fields.
Nevertheless, outdoor investigations are indispensable and often yield
far more important results than anything derived from home rearing;
for, though some Dung-beetles are indifferent to captivity and work in
the cage with their customary vigour, others, who are of a more nervous
temperament or perhaps more cautious, distrust my boarded palaces and
are extremely reluctant to surrender their secrets. It is only once in
a way that they fall victims to my assiduous wooing. Besides, if my
menagerie is to be run properly, I must know something of what is
happening outside, were it only to find out the right time of year for
my various projects. It is absolutely essential therefore that our
study of the insect in captivity should be amply supplemented by
observations of its life and habits in the wild state.
Here an assistant would be very useful to me, some one with leisure,
with a seeing eye and a simple heart, whose curiosity would be as
unaffected as my own. This helper I have: such an one indeed as I have
never had before or since. He is a young shepherd, a friend of the
family. He has read a little and has a keen desire for knowledge, so he
is not frightened by the terms Scarabæus, Geotrupes, Copris or
Onthophagus when I name the insects which he has dug up the day before
and kept for me in a box.
At early dawn in the dog-days, when my insects are busy with their
nest-building, you may see him in the meadows. When night falls and the
heat begins to lessen, he is still there; and all day long, till far
into the night, he passes to and fro among the pill-rollers, who are
attracted from every quarter by the reek of the victuals strewn by his
Sheep. Well-posted in the various points of my entomological problems,
he watches events and keeps me informed. He awaits his opportunity; he
inspects the grass. With his knife he lays bare the subterranean cell
which is betrayed by its little mound of earth; he scrapes, digs and
finds; and it all constitutes a glorious change from his vague pastoral
musings.
Ah, what splendid mornings we spend together, in the cool of the day,
seeking the nest of the Scarab or the Copris! Old Sultan is there,
seated on some knoll or other and keeping an autocratic eye upon the
fleecy rabble. Nothing, not even the crust which a friend holds out to
him, distracts his attention from his exalted functions. Certainly he
is not much to look at, with his tangled black coat, soiled with the
thousands of seeds which have caught in it. He is not a handsome Dog,
but what a lot of sense there is in his shaggy head, what a talent for
knowing exactly what is permitted and what forbidden, for perceiving
the absence of some heedless one forgotten behind a dip in the ground!
Upon my word, one would think that he knew the number of Sheep confided
to his care, his Sheep, though never a bone of them comes his way! He
has counted them from the top of his knoll. One is missing. Sultan
rushes off. Here he comes, bringing the straggler back to the flock.
Clever Dog! I admire your skill in arithmetic, though I fail to
understand how your crude brain ever acquired it. Yes, old fellow, we
can rely on you; the two of us, your master and I, can hunt the
Dung-beetle at our ease and disappear in the copsewood; not one of your
charges will go astray, not one will nibble at the neighbouring vines.
It was in this way that I worked, at early morn, before the sun grew
too hot, in partnership with the young shepherd and our common friend
Sultan, though at times I was alone, myself sole pastor of the seventy
bleating Sheep. And so the materials were gathered for this history of
the Sacred Beetle and his rivals.
TRANSLATOR’S NOTE
This is the first of the four volumes containing Fabre’s essays on
Beetles, the order of insects to which, if we judge by his output, he
devoted the longest study. It will be followed in due course by The
Glow-worm and Other Beetles, The Life of the Weevil, and More Beetles.
These three, however, will be issued, not in immediate succession, but
turn by turn with books upon other insects; for the Souvenirs
entomologiques, from which all or nearly all this material is taken,
are still far from being exhausted.
Of the eighteen chapters that make up the present volume, some have
appeared, either complete or in a more or less abbreviated form, in
various interesting illustrated miscellanies published independently of
the Collected Edition. Part of the Author’s Preface and the chapters
entitled ‘The Sacred Beetle’ and ‘The Sacred Beetle in Captivity’ will
be found in Insect Life, prepared for Messrs. Macmillan and Co. by the
author of Mademoiselle Mori. Similarly, the next three chapters on the
Sacred Beetle, the two treating of the Spanish Copris, the chapter on
the Onthophagi and Oniticelli, and the first two chapters on the
Geotrupes form part of The Life and Love of the Insect, translated by
myself for Messrs. Adam and Charles Black and published in America by
the Macmillan Co. Lastly, The Sisyphus: the Instinct of Paternity
occurs in Mr. Fisher Unwin’s Social Life in the Insect World,
translated by Mr. Bernard Miall and published in America by the Century
Co. These chapters are all included in the Collected Edition by
arrangement with the publishers named.
It remains for me (I grieve to say, for the last time) to acknowledge
my debt to the late Miss Frances Rodwell, my very capable assistant,
who did so much to assist me in preparing this and most of the previous
volumes. Her too early death, in the winter of this year, was an
occasion of sorrow, and a great loss to many besides myself.
Alexander Teixeira de Mattos.
Chelsea, 26th April 1919.
CONTENTS
PAGE
AUTHOR’S PREFACE v
TRANSLATOR’S NOTE xvii
CHAPTER I
THE SACRED BEETLE 1
CHAPTER II
THE SACRED BEETLE IN CAPTIVITY 29
CHAPTER III
THE SACRED BEETLE: THE BALL 42
CHAPTER IV
THE SACRED BEETLE: THE PEAR 56
CHAPTER V
THE SACRED BEETLE: THE MODELLING 73
CHAPTER VI
THE SACRED BEETLE: THE LARVA 83
CHAPTER VII
THE SACRED BEETLE: THE NYMPH; THE RELEASE 96
CHAPTER VIII
THE BROAD-NECKED SCARAB; THE GYMNOPLEURI 112
CHAPTER IX
THE SPANISH COPRIS: THE LAYING OF THE EGGS 127
CHAPTER X
THE SPANISH COPRIS: THE HABITS OF THE MOTHER 149
CHAPTER XI
ONTHOPHAGI AND ONITICELLI 172
CHAPTER XII
THE GEOTRUPES: THE PUBLIC HEALTH 189
CHAPTER XIII
THE GEOTRUPES: NEST-BUILDING 203
CHAPTER XIV
THE GEOTRUPES: THE LARVA 221
CHAPTER XV
THE SISYPHUS: THE INSTINCT OF PATERNITY 235
CHAPTER XVI
THE LUNARY COPRIS; THE BISON ONITIS 248
CHAPTER XVII
THE BULL ONTHOPHAGUS: THE CELL 263
CHAPTER XVIII
THE BULL ONTHOPHAGUS: THE LARVA; THE NYMPH 280
INDEX 293
CHAPTER I
THE SACRED BEETLE
It happened like this. There were five or six of us: myself, the
oldest, officially their master but even more their friend and comrade;
they, lads with warm hearts and joyous imaginations, overflowing with
that youthful vitality which makes us so enthusiastic and so eager for
knowledge. We started off one morning down a path fringed with dwarf
elder and hawthorn, whose clustering blossoms were already a paradise
for the Rose-chafer ecstatically drinking in their bitter perfumes. We
talked as we went. We were going to see whether the Sacred Beetle had
yet made his appearance on the sandy plateau of Les Angles, [2] whether
he was rolling that pellet of dung in which ancient Egypt beheld an
image of the world; we were going to find out whether the stream at the
foot of the hill was not hiding under its mantle of duckweed young
Newts with gills like tiny branches of coral; whether that pretty
little fish of our rivulets, the Stickleback, had donned his wedding
scarf of purple and blue; whether the newly arrived Swallow was
skimming the meadows on pointed wing, chasing the Crane-flies, who
scatter their eggs as they dance through the air; if the Eyed Lizard
was sunning his blue-speckled body on the threshold of a burrow dug in
the sandstone; if the Laughing Gull, travelling from the sea in the
wake of the legions of fish that ascend the Rhone to milt in its
waters, was hovering in his hundreds over the river, ever and anon
uttering his cry so like a maniac’s laughter; if ... but that will do.
To be brief, let us say that, like good simple folk who find pleasure
in all living things, we were off to spend a morning at the most
wonderful of festivals, life’s springtime awakening.
Our expectations were fulfilled. The Stickleback was dressed in his
best: his scales would have paled the lustre of silver; his throat was
flashing with the brightest vermilion. On the approach of the great
black Horse-leech, the spines on his back and sides started up, as
though worked by a spring. In the face of this resolute altitude, the
bandit turns tail and slips ignominiously down among the water-weeds.
The placid mollusc tribe—Planorbes, Limnæi and other Water-snails—were
sucking in the air on the surface of the water. The Hydrophilus and her
hideous larva, those pirates of the ponds, darted amongst them,
wringing a neck or two as they passed. The stupid crowd did not seem
even to notice it. But let us leave the plain and its waters and
clamber up the bluff to the plateau above us. Up there, Sheep are
grazing and Horses being exercised for the approaching races, while all
are distributing manna to the enraptured Dung-beetles.
Here are the scavengers at work, the Beetles whose proud mission it is
to purge the soil of its filth. One would never weary of admiring the
variety of tools wherewith they are supplied, whether for shifting,
cutting up and shaping the stercoral matter or for excavating deep
burrows in which they will seclude themselves with their booty. This
equipment resembles a technical museum where every digging-implement is
represented. It includes things that seem copied from those
appertaining to human industry and others of so original a type that
they might well serve us as models for new inventions.
The Spanish Copris carries on his forehead a powerful pointed horn,
curved backwards, like the long blade of a mattock. In addition to a
similar horn, the Lunary Copris has two strong spikes, curved like a
ploughshare, springing from the thorax and also, between the two, a
jagged protuberance which does duty as a broad rake. Bubas bubalis and
B. bison, both exclusively Mediterranean species, have their forehead
armed with two stout diverging horns, between which juts a horizontal
dagger, supplied by the corselet. Minotaurus typhœus carries on the
front of his thorax three ploughshares, which stick straight out,
parallel to one another, the side ones longer than the middle one. The
Bull Onthophagus has as his tool two long curved pieces that remind us
of the horns of a Bull; the Cow Onthophagus, on the other hand, has a
two-pronged fork standing erect on his flat head. Even the poorest
have, either on their head or on their corselet, hard knobs that make
implements which the patient insect can turn to good use,
notwithstanding their bluntness. All are supplied with a shovel, that
is to say, they have a broad, flat head with a sharp edge; all use a
rake, that is to say, they collect materials with their toothed
fore-legs.
As some sort of compensation for their unsavoury task, several of them
give out a powerful scent of musk, while their bellies shine like
polished metal. The Mimic Geotrupes has gleams of copper and gold
beneath; the Stercoraceous Geotrupes has a belly of amethystine violet.
But generally their colouring is black. The Dung-beetles in gorgeous
raiment, those veritable living gems, belong to the tropics. Upper
Egypt can show us under its Camel-dung a Beetle rivalling the emerald’s
brilliant green; Guiana, Brazil and Senegambia boast of Copres that are
a metallic red, rich as copper and ruby-bright. The Dung-beetles of our
climes cannot flaunt such jewellery, but they are no less remarkable
for their habits.
What excitement over a single patch of Cow-dung! Never did adventurers
hurrying from the four corners of the earth display such eagerness in
working a Californian claim. Before the sun becomes too hot, they are
there in their hundreds, large and small, of every sort, shape and
size, hastening to carve themselves a slice of the common cake. There
are some that labour in the open air and scrape the surface; there are
others that dig themselves galleries in the thick of the heap, in
search of choice veins; some work the lower stratum and bury their
spoil without delay in the ground just below; others again, the
smallest, keep on one side and crumble a morsel that has slipped their
way during the mighty excavations of their more powerful fellows. Some,
newcomers and doubtless the hungriest, consume their meal on the spot;
but the greater number dream of accumulating stocks that will allow
them to spend long days in affluence, down in some safe retreat. A
nice, fresh patch of dung is not found just when you want it, in the
barren plains overgrown with thyme; a windfall of this sort is as manna
from the sky; only fortune’s favourites receive so fair a portion.
Wherefore the riches of to-day are prudently hoarded for the morrow.
The stercoraceous scent has carried the glad tidings half a mile
around; and all have hastened up to get a store of provisions. A few
laggards are still arriving, on the wing or on foot.
Who is this that comes trotting towards the heap, fearing lest he reach
it too late? His long legs move with awkward jerks, as though driven by
some mechanism within his belly; his little red antennæ unfurl their
fan, a sign of anxious greed. He is coming, he has come, not without
sending a few banqueters sprawling. It is the Sacred Beetle, clad all
in black, the biggest and most famous of our Dung-beetles. Behold him
at table, beside his fellow-guests, each of whom is giving the last
touches to his ball with the flat of his broad fore-legs or else
enriching it with yet one more layer before retiring to enjoy the fruit
of his labours in peace. Let us follow the construction of the famous
ball in all its phases.
The clypeus, or shield, that is the edge of the broad, flat head, is
notched with six angular teeth arranged in a semicircle. This
constitutes the tool for digging and cutting up, the rake that lifts
and casts aside the unnutritious vegetable fibres, goes for something
better, scrapes and collects it. A choice is thus made, for these
connoisseurs differentiate between one thing and another, making a
rough selection when the Beetle is occupied with his own provender, but
an extremely scrupulous one when it is a matter of constructing the
maternal ball, which has a central cavity in which the egg will hatch.
Then every scrap of fibre is conscientiously rejected and only the
stercoral quintessence is gathered as the material for building the
inner layer of the cell. The young larva, on issuing from the egg, thus
finds in the very walls of its lodging a food of special delicacy which
strengthens its digestion and enables it afterwards to attack the
coarse outer layers.
Where his own needs are concerned, the Beetle is less particular and
contents himself with a very general sorting. The notched shield then
does its scooping and digging, its casting aside and scraping together
more or less at random. The fore-legs play a mighty part in the work.
They are flat, bow-shaped, supplied with powerful nervures and armed on
the outside with five strong teeth. If a vigorous effort be needed to
remove an obstacle or to force a way through the thickest part of the
heap, the Dung-beetle makes use of his elbows, that is to say, he
flings his toothed legs to right and left and clears a semicircular
space with an energetic sweep. Room once made, a different kind of work
is found for these same limbs: they collect armfuls of the stuff raked
together by the shield and push it under the insect’s belly, between
the four hinder legs. These are formed for the turner’s trade. They are
long and slender, especially the last pair, slightly bowed and finished
with a very sharp claw. They are at once recognised as compasses,
capable of embracing a globular body in their curved branches and of
verifying and correcting its shape. Their function is, in fact, to
fashion the ball.
Armful by armful, the material is heaped up under the belly, between
the four legs, which, by a slight pressure, impart their own curve to
it and give it a preliminary outline. Then, every now and again, the
rough-hewn pill is set spinning between the four branches of the double
pair of spherical compasses; it turns under the Dung-beetle’s belly
until it is rolled into a perfect ball. Should the surface layer lack
plasticity and threaten to peel off, should some too-stringy part
refuse to yield to the action of the lathe, the fore-legs touch up the
faulty places; their broad paddles pat the ball to give consistency to
the new layer and to work the recalcitrant bits into the mass.
Under a hot sun, when time presses, one stands amazed at the turner’s
feverish activity. And so the work proceeds apace: what a moment ago
was a tiny pellet is now a ball the size of a walnut; soon it will be
the size of an apple. I have seen some gluttons manufacture a ball the
size of a man’s fist. This indeed means food in the larder for days to
come!
The Beetle has his provisions. The next thing is to withdraw from the
fray and transport the victuals to a suitable place. Here the Scarab’s
most striking characteristics begin to show themselves. Straightway he
begins his journey; he clasps his sphere with his two long hind-legs,
whose terminal claws, planted in the mass, serve as pivots; he obtains
a purchase with the middle pair of legs; and, with his toothed
fore-arms, pressing in turn upon the ground, to do duty as levers, he
proceeds with his load, he himself moving backwards, body bent, head
down and hind-quarters in the air. The rear legs, the principal factor
in the mechanism, are in continual movement backwards and forwards,
shifting the claws to change the axis of rotation, to keep the load
balanced and to push it along by alternate thrusts to right and left.
In this way the ball finds itself touching the ground by turns with
every point of its surface, a process which perfects its shape and
gives an even consistency to its outer layer by means of pressure
uniformly distributed.
And now to work with a will! The thing moves, it begins to roll; we
shall get there, though not without difficulty. Here is a first awkward
place: the Beetle is wending his way athwart a slope and the heavy mass
tends to follow the incline; the insect, however, for reasons best
known to itself, prefers to cut across this natural road, a bold
project which may be brought to naught by a false step or by a grain of
sand that disturbs the balance of the load. The false step is made:
down goes the ball to the bottom of the valley; and the insect, toppled
over by the shock, is lying on its back, kicking. It is soon up again
and hastens to harness itself once more to its load. The machine works
better than ever. But look out, you dunderhead! Follow the dip of the
valley: that will save labour and mishaps; the road is good and level;
your ball will roll quite easily. Not a bit of it! The Beetle prepares
once again to mount the slope that has already been his undoing.
Perhaps it suits him to return to the heights. Against that I have
nothing to say: the Scarab’s judgment is better than mine as to the
advisability of keeping to lofty regions; he can see farther than I can
in these matters. But at least take this path, which will lead you up
by a gentle incline! Certainly not! Let him find himself near some very
steep slope, impossible to climb, and that is the very path which the
obstinate fellow will choose. Now begins a Sisyphean labour. The ball,
that enormous burden, is painfully hoisted, step by step, with infinite
precautions, to a certain height, always backwards. We wonder by what
miracle of statics a mass of this size can be kept upon the slope. Oh!
An ill-advised movement frustrates all this toil: the ball rolls down,
dragging the Beetle with it. Once more the heights are scaled and
another fall is the sequel. The attempt is renewed, with greater skill
this time at the difficult points; a wretched grass-root, the cause of
the previous falls, is carefully got over. We are almost there; but
steady now, steady! It is a dangerous ascent and the merest trifle may
yet ruin everything. For see, a leg slips on a smooth bit of gravel!
Down come ball and Beetle, all mixed up together. And the insect begins
over again, with indefatigable obstinacy. Ten times, twenty times, he
will attempt the hopeless ascent, until his persistence vanquishes all
obstacles, or until, wisely recognizing the futility of his efforts, he
adopts the level road.
The Scarab does not always push his precious ball alone: sometimes he
takes a partner; or, to be accurate, the partner takes him. This is the
way in which things usually happen: once his ball is ready, a
Dung-beetle issues from the crowd and leaves the workyard, pushing his
prize backwards. A neighbour, a newcomer, whose own task is hardly
begun, abruptly drops his work and runs to the moving ball, to lend a
hand to the lucky owner, who seems to accept the proffered aid kindly.
Henceforth the two work in partnership. Each does his best to push the
pellet to a place of safety. Was a compact really concluded in the
workyard, a tacit agreement to share the cake between them? While one
was kneading and moulding the ball, was the other tapping rich veins
whence to extract choice materials and add them to the common store? I
have never observed any such collaboration; I have always seen each
Dung-beetle occupied solely with his own affairs in the works. The
last-comer, therefore, has no acquired rights.
Can it then be a partnership between the two sexes, a couple intending
to set up house? I thought so for a time. The two Beetles, one before,
one behind, pushing the heavy ball with equal fervour, reminded me of a
song which the hurdy-gurdies used to grind out some years ago:
Pour monter notre ménage, hélas! comment ferons-nous?
Toi devant et moi derrière, nous pousserons le tonneau. [3]
The evidence of the scalpel compelled me to abandon my belief in this
domestic idyll. There is no outward difference between the two sexes in
the Scarabæi. I therefore dissected the pair of Dung-beetles engaged in
trundling one and the same ball; and they very often proved to be of
the same sex.
Neither community of family nor community of labour! Then what is the
motive for this apparent partnership? It is purely and simply an
attempt at robbery. The zealous fellow-worker, on the false plea of
lending a helping hand, cherishes a plan to purloin the ball at the
first opportunity. To make one’s own ball at the heap means hard work
and patience; to steal one ready-made, or at least to foist one’s self
as a guest, is a much easier matter. Should the owner’s vigilance
slacken, you can run away with his property; should you be too closely
watched, you can sit down to table uninvited, pleading services
rendered. It is ‘Heads I win, tails you lose’ in these tactics, so that
pillage is practised as one of the most lucrative of trades. Some go to
work craftily, in the way which I have described: they come to the aid
of a comrade who has not the least need of them and hide the most
barefaced greed under the cloak of charitable assistance. Others,
bolder perhaps, more confident in their strength, go straight to their
goal and commit robbery with violence.
Scenes are constantly happening such as this: a Scarab goes off,
peacefully, by himself, rolling his ball, his lawful property, acquired
by conscientious work. Another comes flying up, I know not whence,
drops down heavily, folds his dingy wings under their cases and, with
the back of his toothed fore-arms, knocks over the owner, who is
powerless to ward off the attack in his awkward position, harnessed as
he is to his property. While the victim struggles to his feet, the
other perches himself atop the ball, the best position from which to
repel an assailant. With his fore-arms crossed over his breast, ready
to hit back, he awaits events. The dispossessed one moves round the
ball, seeking a favourable spot at which to make the assault; the
usurper spins round on the roof of the citadel, facing his opponent all
the time. If the latter raise himself in order to scale the wall, the
robber gives him a blow that stretches him on his back. Safe at the top
of his fortress, the besieged Beetle could foil his adversary’s
attempts indefinitely if the latter did not change his tactics. He
turns sapper so as to reduce the citadel with the garrison. The ball,
shaken from below, totters and begins rolling, carrying with it the
thieving Dung-beetle, who makes violent efforts to maintain his
position on the top. This he succeeds in doing—though not
invariably—thanks to hurried gymnastic feats which land him higher on
the ball and make up for the ground which he loses by its rotation.
Should a false movement bring him to earth, the chances become equal
and the struggle turns into a wrestling-match. Robber and robbed
grapple with each other, breast to breast. Their legs lock and unlock,
their joints intertwine, their horny armour clashes and grates with the
rasping sound of metal under the file. Then the one who succeeds in
throwing his opponent and releasing himself scrambles to the top of the
ball and there takes up his position. The siege is renewed, now by the
robber, now by the robbed, as the chances of the hand-to-hand conflict
may decree. The former, a brawny desperado, no novice at the game,
often has the best of the fight. Then, after two or three unsuccessful
attempts, the defeated Beetle wearies and returns philosophically to
the heap, to make himself a new pellet. As for the other, with all fear
of a surprise attack at an end, he harnesses himself to the conquered
ball and pushes it whither he pleases. I have sometimes seen a third
thief appear upon the scene and rob the robber. Nor can I honestly say
that I was sorry.
I ask myself in vain what Proudhon [4] introduced into Scarabæan
morality the daring paradox that ‘property means plunder,’ or what
diplomatist taught the Dung-beetle the savage maxim that ‘might is
right.’ I have no data that would enable me to trace the origin of
these spoliations, which have become a custom, of this abuse of
strength to capture a lump of ordure. All that I can say is that theft
is a general practice among the Scarabs. These dung-rollers rob one
another with a calm effrontery which, to my knowledge, is without a
parallel. I leave it to future observers to elucidate this curious
problem in animal psychology and I go back to the two partners rolling
their ball in concert.
But first let me dispel a current error in the text-books. I find in M.
Émile Blanchard’s [5] magnificent work, Métamorphoses, mœurs et
instincts des insectes, the following passage:
‘Sometimes our insect is stopped by an insurmountable obstacle; the
ball has fallen into a hole. At such moments the Ateuchus [6] gives
evidence of a really astonishing grasp of the situation as well as
of a system of ready communication between individuals of the same
species which is even more remarkable. Recognizing the
impossibility of coaxing the ball out of the hole, the Ateuchus
seems to abandon it and flies away. If you are sufficiently endowed
with that great and noble virtue called patience, stay by the
forsaken ball: after a while, the Ateuchus will return to the same
spot and will not return alone; he will be accompanied by two,
three, four or five companions, who will all alight at the place
indicated and will combine their efforts to raise the load. The
Ateuchus has been to fetch reinforcements; and this explains why it
is such a common sight, in the dry fields, to see several Ateuchi
joining in the removal of a single ball.’
Lastly, I read in Illiger’s [7] Entomological Magazine:
‘A Gymnopleurus pilularius, [8] while constructing the ball of dung
destined to contain her eggs, let it roll into a hole, whence she
strove for a long time to extract it unaided. Finding that she was
wasting her time in vain efforts, she ran to a neighbouring heap of
manure to fetch three individuals of her own species, who, uniting
their strength to hers, succeeded in withdrawing the ball from the
cavity into which it had fallen and then returned to their manure
to continue their work.’
I crave a thousand pardons of my illustrious master, M. Blanchard, but
things certainly do not happen as he says. To begin with, the two
accounts are so much alike that they must have had a common origin.
Illiger, on the strength of observations not continuous enough to
deserve blind confidence, put forward the case of his Gymnopleurus; and
the same story was repeated about the Scarabæi because it is, in fact,
quite usual to see two of these insects occupied together either in
rolling a ball or in getting it out of a troublesome place. But this
cooperation in no way proves that the Dung-beetle who found himself in
difficulties went to requisition the aid of his mates. I have had no
small measure of the patience recommended by M. Blanchard; I have lived
laborious days in close intimacy, if I may say so, with the Sacred
Beetle; I have done everything that I could think of in order to enter
as thoroughly as possible into his ways and habits and to study them
from life; and I have never seen anything that suggested either nearly
or remotely the idea of companions summoned to lend assistance. As I
shall presently relate, I have subjected the Dung-beetle to far more
serious trials than that of getting his ball into a hole; I have
confronted him with much graver difficulties than that of mounting a
slope, which is sheer sport to the obstinate Sisyphus, who seems to
delight in the rough gymnastics involved in climbing steep places, as
if the ball thereby grew firmer and accordingly increased in value; I
have created artificial situations in which the insect had the
uttermost need of help; and never did my eyes detect any evidence of
friendly services rendered by comrade to comrade. I have seen Beetles
robbed and Beetles robbing and nothing more. If a number of them were
gathered around the same pill, it meant that a battle was taking place.
My humble opinion, therefore, is that the incident of a number of
Scarabæi collected around the same ball with thieving intentions has
given rise to these stories of comrades called in to lend a hand.
Imperfect observations are responsible for this transformation of the
bold highwayman into a helpful companion who has left his work to do
another a friendly turn.
It is no light matter to attribute to an insect a really astonishing
grasp of a situation, combined with an even more amazing power of
communication between individuals of the same species. Such an
admission involves more than one imagines. That is why I insist on my
point. What! Are we to believe that a Beetle in distress will conceive
the idea of going in quest of help? We are to imagine him flying off
and scouring the country to find fellow-workers on some patch of dung;
when he has found them, we are to suppose that he addresses them, in a
sort of pantomime, by gestures with his antennæ more particularly, in
some such words as these:
‘I say, you fellows, my load’s upset in a hole over there; come and
help me get it out. I’ll do as much for you one day!’
And we are to believe that his comrades understand! And, more
incredible still, that they straightway leave their work, the pellet
which they have just begun, the beloved pill exposed to the cupidity of
others and certain to be filched in their absence, and go to the help
of the suppliant! I am profoundly incredulous of such unselfishness;
and my incredulity is confirmed by what I have witnessed for years and
years, not in glass-cases but in the very places where the Scarab
works. Apart from its maternal solicitude, in which respect it is
nearly always admirable, the insect cares for nothing but itself,
unless it lives in societies, like the Hive-bees, the Ants and the
rest.
But let me end this digression, which is excused by the importance of
the subject. I was saying that a Sacred Beetle, in possession of a ball
which he is pushing backwards, is often joined by another, who comes
hurrying up to lend an assistance which is anything but disinterested,
his intention being to rob his companion if the opportunity present
itself. Let us call the two workers partners, though that is not the
proper name for them, seeing that the one forces himself upon the
other, who probably accepts outside help only for fear of a worse evil.
The meeting, by the way, is absolutely peaceful. The owner of the ball
does not cease work for an instant on the arrival of the newcomer; and
his uninvited assistant seems animated by the best intentions and sets
to work on the spot. The way in which the two partners harness
themselves differs. The proprietor occupies the chief position, the
place of honour: he pushes at the rear, with his hind-legs in the air
and his head down. His subordinate is in front, in the reverse posture,
head up, toothed arms on the ball, long hind-legs on the ground.
Between the two, the ball rolls along, one driving it before him, the
other pulling it towards him.
The efforts of the couple are not always very harmonious, the more so
as the assistant has his back to the road to be traversed, while the
owner’s view is impeded by the load. The result is that they are
constantly having accidents, absurd tumbles, taken cheerfully and in
good part: each picks himself up quickly and resumes the same position
as before. On level ground this system of traction does not correspond
with the dynamic force expended, through lack of precision in the
combined movements: the Scarab at the back would do as well and better
if left to himself. And so the helper, having given a proof of his
good-will at the risk of throwing the machinery out of gear, now
decides to keep still, without letting go of the precious ball, of
course. He already looks upon that as his: a ball touched is a ball
gained. He won’t be so silly as not to stick to it: the other might
give him the slip!
So he gathers his legs flat under his belly, encrusting himself, so to
speak, on the ball and becoming one with it. Henceforth, the whole
concern—the ball and the Beetle clinging to its surface—is rolled along
by the efforts of the lawful owner. The intruder sits tight and lies
low, heedless whether the load pass over his body, whether he be at the
top, bottom or side of the rolling ball. A queer sort of assistant, who
gets a free ride so as to make sure of his share of the victuals!
But a steep ascent heaves in sight and gives him a fine part to play.
He takes the lead now, holding up the heavy mass with his toothed arms,
while his mate seeks a purchase in order to hoist the load a little
higher. In this way, by a combination of well-directed efforts, the
Beetle above gripping, the one below pushing, I have seen a couple
mount hills which would have been too much for a single carter, however
persevering. But in times of difficulty not all show the same zeal:
there are some who, on awkward slopes where their assistance is most
needed, seem blissfully unaware of the trouble. While the unhappy
Sisyphus exhausts himself in attempts to get over the bad part, the
other quietly leaves him to it: imbedded in the ball, he rolls down
with it if it comes to grief and is hoisted up with it when they start
afresh.
I have often tried the following experiment on the two partners in
order to judge their inventive faculties when placed in a serious
predicament. Suppose them to be on level ground, number two seated
motionless on the ball, number one busy pushing. Without disturbing the
latter, I nail the ball to the ground with a long, strong pin. It stops
suddenly. The Beetle, unaware of my perfidy, doubtless believes that
some natural obstacle, a rut, a tuft of couch-grass, a pebble, bars the
way. He redoubles his efforts, struggles his hardest; nothing happens.
‘What can the matter be? Let’s go and see.’
The Beetle walks two or three times round his pellet. Discovering
nothing to account for its immobility, he returns to the rear and
starts pushing again. The ball remains stationary.
‘Let’s look up above.’
The Beetle goes up, to find nothing but his motionless colleague, for I
had taken care to drive in the pin so deep that the head disappeared in
the ball. He explores the whole upper surface and comes down again.
Fresh thrusts are vigorously applied in front and at the sides, with
the same absence of success. There is not a doubt about it: never
before was Dung-beetle confronted with such a problem in inertia.
Now is the time, the very time, to claim assistance, which is all the
easier as his mate is there, close at hand, squatting on the summit of
the ball. Will the Scarab rouse him? Will he talk to him like this:
‘What are you doing there, lazybones? Come and look at the thing: it’s
broken down!’
Nothing proves that he does anything of the kind, for I see him
steadily shaking the unshakable, inspecting his stationary machine on
every side, while all this time his companion sits resting. At long
last, however, the latter becomes aware that something unusual is
happening; he is apprised of it by his mate’s restless tramping and by
the immobility of the ball. He comes down, therefore, and in his turn
examines the machine. Double harness does no better than single
harness. This is beginning to look serious. The little fans of the
Beetles’ antennæ open and shut, open again, betraying by their
agitation acute anxiety. Then a stroke of genius ends the perplexity:
‘Who knows what’s underneath?’
They now start exploring below the ball; and a little digging soon
reveals the presence of the pin. They recognize at once that the
trouble is there.
If I had had a voice in their deliberations, I should have said:
‘We must make a hole in the ball and pull out that skewer which is
holding it down.’
This most elementary of all proceedings and one so easy to such expert
diggers was not adopted, was not even tried. The Dung-beetle was
shrewder than man. The two colleagues, one on this side, one on that,
slip under the ball, which begins to slide up the pin, getting higher
and higher in proportion as the living wedges make their way
underneath. The clever operation is made possible by the softness of
the material, which gives easily and makes a channel under the head of
the immovable stake. Soon the pellet is suspended at a height equal to
the thickness of the Scarabs’ bodies. The rest is not such plain
sailing. The Dung-beetles, who at first were lying flat, rise gradually
to their feet, still pushing with their backs. The work becomes harder
and harder as the legs, in straightening out, lose their strength; but
none the less they do it. Then comes a time when they can no longer
push with their backs, the limit of their height having been reached. A
last resource remains, but one much less favourable to the development
of motive power. This is for the insect to adopt one or other of its
postures when harnessed to the ball, head down or up, and to push with
its hind- or fore-legs, as the case may be. Finally the ball drops to
the ground, unless we have used too long a pin. The gash made by our
stake is repaired, more or less, and the carting of the precious pellet
is at once resumed.
But, should the pin really be too long, then the ball, which remains
firmly fixed, ends by being suspended at a height above that of the
insect’s full stature. In that case, after vain evolutions around the
unconquerable greased pole, the Dung-beetles throw up the sponge,
unless we are sufficiently kind-hearted to finish the work ourselves
and restore their treasure to them. Or again we can help them by
raising the floor with a small flat stone, a pedestal from the top of
which it is possible for the Beetle to continue his labours. Its use
does not appear to be immediately understood, for neither of the two is
in any hurry to take advantage of it. Nevertheless, by accident or
design, one or other at last finds himself on the stone. Oh, joy! As he
passed, he felt the ball touch his back. At that contact, courage
returns; and his efforts begin once more. Standing on his helpful
platform, the Scarab stretches his joints, rounds his shoulders, as one
might say, and shoves the pellet upwards. When his shoulders no longer
avail, he works with his legs, now upright, now head downwards. There
is a fresh pause, accompanied by fresh signs of uneasiness, when the
limit of extension is reached. Thereupon, without disturbing the
creature, we place a second little stone on the top of the first. With
the aid of this new step, which provides a fulcrum for its levers, the
insect pursues its task. Thus adding story upon story as required, I
have seen the Scarab, hoisted to the summit of a tottering pile three
or four fingers’-breadth in height, persevere in his work until the
ball was completely detached.
Had he some vague consciousness of the service performed by the gradual
raising of the pedestal? I venture to doubt it, though he cleverly took
advantage of my platform of little stones. As a matter of fact, if the
very elementary idea of using a higher support in order to reach
something placed above one’s grasp were not beyond the Beetle’s
comprehension, how is it that, when there are two of them, neither
thinks of lending the other his back so as to raise him by that much
and make it possible for him to go on working? If one helped the other
in this way, they could reach twice as high. They are very far,
however, from any such cooperation. Each pushes the ball, with all his
might, I admit, but he pushes as if he were alone and seems to have no
notion of the happy result that would follow a combined effort. In this
instance, when the ball is nailed to the ground by a pin, they do
exactly what they do in corresponding circumstances, as, for example,
when the load is brought to a standstill by some obstacle, caught in a
loop of couch-grass or transfixed by some spiky bit of stalk that has
run into the soft, rolling mass. I produced artificially a stoppage
which is not really very different from those occurring naturally when
the ball is being rolled amid the thousand and one irregularities of
the ground; and the Beetle behaves, in my experimental tests, as he
would have behaved in any other circumstances in which I had no part.
He uses his back as a wedge and a lever and pushes with his feet,
without introducing anything new into his methods, even when he has a
companion and can avail himself of his assistance.
When he is all alone in face of the difficulty, when he has no
assistant, his dynamic operations remain absolutely the same; and his
efforts to move his transfixed ball end in success, provided that we
give him the indispensable support of a platform, built up little by
little. If we deny him this succour, then, no longer encouraged by the
contact of his beloved ball, he loses heart and sooner or later flies
away, doubtless with many regrets, and disappears. Where to? I do not
know. What I do know is that he does not return with a gang of
fellow-labourers whom he has begged to help him. What would he do with
them, he who cannot make use of even one comrade?
But perhaps my experiment, which leaves the ball suspended at an
inaccessible height and the insect with its means of action exhausted,
is a little too far removed from ordinary conditions. Let us try
instead a miniature pit, deep enough and steep enough to prevent the
Dung-beetle, when placed at the bottom, from rolling his load up the
side. These are exactly the conditions stated by Messrs. Blanchard and
Illiger. Well, what happens? When dogged but utterly fruitless efforts
have convinced him of his helplessness, the Beetle takes wing and
disappears. Relying upon what these learned writers said, I have waited
long hours for the insect to return reinforced by a few friends. I have
always waited in vain. Many a time also I have found the pellet several
days later just where I left it, stuck at the top of a pin or in a
hole, proving that nothing fresh had happened in my absence. A ball
abandoned from necessity is a ball abandoned for good, with no attempt
at salvage with the aid of others. A dexterous use of wedge and lever
to set the ball rolling again is therefore, when all is said, the
greatest intellectual effort which I have observed in the Sacred
Beetle. To make up for what the experiment refutes, namely, an appeal
for help among fellow-workers, I gladly chronicle this feat of
mechanical prowess for the Dung-beetles’ greater glory.
Directing their steps at random, over sandy plains thick with thyme,
over cart-ruts and steep places, the two Beetle brethren roll the ball
along for some time, thus giving its substance a certain consistency
which may be to their liking. While still on the road, they select a
favourable spot. The rightful owner, the Beetle who throughout has kept
the place of honour, behind the ball, the one in short who has done
almost all the carting by himself, sets to work to dig the dining-room.
Beside him is the ball, with number two clinging to it, shamming dead.
Number one attacks the sand with his sharp-edged forehead and his
toothed legs; he flings armfuls of it behind him; and the work of
excavating proceeds apace. Soon the Beetle has disappeared from view in
the half-dug cavern. Whenever he returns to the upper air with a load,
he invariably glances at his ball to see if all is well. From time to
time he brings it nearer the threshold of the burrow; he feels it and
seems to acquire new vigour from the contact. The other, lying demure
and motionless on the ball, continues to inspire confidence. Meanwhile
the underground hall grows larger and deeper; and the digger’s field of
operations is now too vast for any but very occasional appearances. Now
is the time. The crafty sleeper awakens and hurriedly decamps with the
ball, which he pushes behind him with the speed of a pickpocket anxious
not to be caught in the act. This breach of trust rouses my
indignation, but the historian triumphs for the moment over the
moralist and I leave him alone: I shall have time enough to intervene
on the side of law and order if things threaten to turn out badly.
The thief is already some yards away. His victim comes out of the
burrow, looks around and finds nothing. Doubtless an old hand himself,
he knows what this means. Scent and sight soon put him on the track. He
makes haste and catches up the robber; but the artful dodger, when he
feels his pursuer close on his heels, promptly changes his posture,
gets on his hind-legs and clasps the ball with his toothed arms, as he
does when acting as an assistant.
You rogue, you! I see through your tricks: you mean to plead as an
excuse that the pellet rolled down the slope and that you are only
trying to stop it and bring it back home. I, however, an impartial
witness, declare that the ball was quite steady at the entrance to the
burrow and did not roll of its own accord. Besides, the ground is
level. I declare that I saw you set the thing in motion and make off
with unmistakable intentions. It was an attempt at larceny, or I’ve
never seen one!
My evidence is not admitted. The owner cheerfully accepts the other’s
excuses; and the two bring the ball back to the burrow as though
nothing had happened.
If the thief, however, has time to get far enough away, or if he
manages to cover his trail by adroitly doubling back, the injury is
irreparable. To collect provisions under a blazing sun, to cart them a
long distance, to dig a comfortable banqueting-hall in the sand, and
then—just when everything is ready and your appetite, whetted by
exercise, lends an added charm to the approaching feast—suddenly to
find yourself cheated by a crafty partner is, it must be admitted, a
reverse of fortune that would dishearten most of us. The Dung-beetle
does not allow himself to be cast down by this piece of ill-luck: he
rubs his cheeks, spreads his antennæ, sniffs the air and flies to the
nearest heap to begin all over again. I admire and envy this cast of
character.
Suppose the Scarab fortunate enough to have found a loyal partner; or,
better still, suppose that he has met no self-incited companion. The
burrow is ready. It is a shallow cavity, about the size of one’s fist,
dug in soft earth, usually in sand, and communicating with the outside
by a short passage just wide enough to admit the ball. As soon as the
provisions are safely stored away, the Scarab shuts himself in by
stopping up the entrance to his dwelling with rubbish kept in a corner
for the purpose. Once the door is closed, nothing outside betrays the
existence of the banqueting-chamber. And, now, hail mirth and jollity!
All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds! The table is
sumptuously spread; the ceiling tempers the heat of the sun and allows
only a moist and gentle warmth to penetrate; the undisturbed quiet, the
darkness, the Crickets’ concert overhead are all pleasant aids to
digestion. So complete has been the illusion that I have caught myself
listening at the door, expecting to hear the revellers burst into the
famous snatch in Galatée: [9]
Ah! qu’il est doux de ne rien faire,
Quand tout s’agite autour de nous? [10]
Who would dare disturb the bliss of such a banquet? But the desire for
knowledge is capable of all things; and I had the necessary daring. I
will set down here the result of my violation of the home.
The ball by itself fills almost the whole room; the rich repast rises
from floor to ceiling. A narrow passage runs between it and the walls.
Here sit the banqueters, two at most, very often only one, belly to
table, back to the wall. Once the seat is chosen, no one stirs; all the
vital forces are absorbed by the digestive faculties. There is no
fidgeting, which might mean the loss of a mouthful; no dainty toying
with the food, which might cause some to be wasted. Everything has to
pass through, properly and in order. To see them seated so solemnly
around a ball of dung, one would think that they were conscious of
their function as cleansers of the earth and that they were
deliberately devoting themselves to that marvellous chemistry which out
of filth brings forth the flower that delights our eyes and the
Beetles’ wing-case that jewels our lawns in spring. For this supreme
work which turns into living matter the refuse which neither the Horse
nor the Mule can utilize, despite the perfection of their digestive
organs, the Dung-beetle must needs be specially equipped. And indeed
anatomy compels us to admire the prodigious length of his coiled
intestine, which slowly elaborates the materials in its manifold
windings and exhausts them to the very last serviceable atom. Matter
from which the ruminant’s stomach could extract nothing, yields to this
powerful alembic riches that, at a mere touch, are transmuted into ebon
mail in the Sacred Scarab and a breastplate of gold and rubies in other
Dung-beetles.
Now this wonderful metamorphosis of ordure has to be accomplished in
the shortest possible time: the public health demands it. And so the
Scarab is endowed with matchless digestive powers. Once housed in the
company of food, he goes on eating and digesting, day and night, until
the provisions are exhausted. There is no difficulty in proving this.
Open the cell to which the Dung-beetle has retired from the world. At
any hour of the day, we shall find the insect seated at table and,
behind it, still hanging to it, a continuous cord, roughly coiled like
a pile of cables. One can easily guess, without embarrassing
explanations, what this cord represents. The great ball of dung passes
mouthful by mouthful through the Beetle’s digestive canals, yielding up
its nutritive essences, and reappears at the opposite end spun into a
cord. Well, this unbroken cord, which is always found hanging from the
aperture of the draw-plate, is ample proof, without further evidence,
that the digestive processes go on without ceasing. When the provisions
are coming to an end, the cable unrolled is of an astounding length: it
can be measured in feet. Where shall we find the like of this stomach
which, to avoid any loss when life’s balance-sheet is made out, feasts
for a week or a fortnight, without stopping, on such distasteful fare?
When the whole ball has passed through the machine, the hermit comes
back to the daylight, tries his luck afresh, finds another patch of
dung, fashions a new ball and starts eating again. This life of
pleasure lasts for a month or two, from May to June; then, with the
coming of the fierce heat beloved of the Cicadæ, [11] the Sacred
Beetles take up their summer quarters and bury themselves in the cool
earth. They reappear with the first autumn rains, less numerous and
less active than in spring, but now seemingly absorbed in the most
important work of all, the future of the species.