THE SACRED BEETLE: THE PEAR
The young shepherd who had been told in his spare time to watch the
doings of the Sacred Beetle came to me in high spirits, one Sunday in
the latter part of June, to say that he thought the time had come to
begin our investigations. He had detected the insect issuing from the
ground, had dug at the spot where it made its appearance, and had
found, at no great depth, the queer thing which he was bringing me.
Queer it was and calculated to upset the little that I thought I knew.
In shape, it was exactly like a tiny pear that had lost all its fresh
colour and turned brown in rotting. What could this curious object be,
this pretty plaything that seemed to have come from a turner’s
workshop? Was it made by human hands? Was it a model of the fruit of
the pear-tree intended for some children’s museum? One would say so.
The little ones group themselves round me; they look at the
treasure-trove with longing eyes; they would like to add it to the
contents of their toy-box. It is much prettier in shape than an agate
marble, much more graceful than an ivory egg or a boxwood top. The
material, it is true, seems none too nicely chosen; but it is firm to
the touch and very artistically curved. In any case, the little pear
discovered underground must not go to swell the nursery collection
until we have found out more about it.
Can it really be the Sacred Beetle’s work? Is there an egg inside it, a
grub? The shepherd assures me that there is. A similar pear, crushed by
accident in the digging, contained, he says, a white egg, the size of a
grain of wheat. I dare not believe it, so greatly does the object which
he has brought me differ from the ball which I expected to see.
To open the mysterious prize and ascertain its contents would perhaps
be imprudent: such an act of violence might jeopardize the life of the
germ within, always provided that the Scarab’s egg be there, a matter
of which the shepherd seems convinced. Besides, I say to myself, the
pear-shape, so totally opposed to all our accepted ideas, is probably
accidental. Who knows if luck will ever give me anything like it again?
I should be wise to keep the thing just as it is and await events;
above all, I should be wise to go and seek for information on the spot.
The shepherd was at his post by daybreak the next morning. I joined him
on some slopes that had been lately cleared of their trees, where the
hot summer sun, which strikes with such force on the back of one’s
neck, could not reach us for two or three hours. In the cool morning
air, with the Sheep browsing under Sultan’s care, the two of us
scattered on our search.
A Sacred Beetle’s burrow is soon found: you can tell it by the fresh
little mound of earth above it. With a vigorous turn of the wrist, my
companion digs away with the little pocket-trowel which I have lent
him. Incorrigible earth-scraper that I am, I seldom set forth without
this light but serviceable tool. While he digs, I lie down, the better
to see the arrangement and furniture of the cellar which we are
unearthing, and I am all eyes. The shepherd uses the trowel as a lever
and, with his other hand, holds back and pushes aside the soil.
Here we are! A cave opens out and, in the moist warmth of the yawning
vault, I see a splendid pear lying full length upon the ground. No, I
shall not soon forget this first revelation of the Scarab’s maternal
masterpiece. My excitement could have been no greater had I been an
archæologist digging among the ancient relics of Egypt and lighting
upon the sacred insect of the dead, carved in emerald, in some
Pharaonic crypt. O ineffable moment, when truth suddenly shines forth!
What other joys can compare with that holy rapture! The shepherd was in
the seventh heaven; he laughed in response to my smile and was happy in
my gladness.
Luck does not repeat itself: ‘Non bis in idem,’ says the old adage. And
here have I twice had under my eyes this curious pear-shape. Is it by
any chance the normal shape, not subject to exception? Must we abandon
the thought of a sphere similar to those which the insect rolls along
the ground? Let us continue and we shall see.
A second hole is found. Like the previous one, it contains a pear. My
two treasures are as like as two peas; they might have issued from the
same mould. And here is a valuable confirmatory detail: in the second
burrow, by the side of the pear and fondly embracing it, is the mother
Beetle, engaged no doubt in giving it the finishing touches before
leaving the underground cave for good. All doubts are dispelled: I know
the worker and I know the work.
The rest of the morning provided abundant corroboration of these
premisses: before an intolerable sun drove me from the slope which I
was exploring, I was in possession of a dozen pears identical in shape
and almost in dimensions. On several occasions the mother was present
in the workshop.
To conclude this part of our subject, let me tell what the future held
in store for me. All through the dog-days, from the end of June until
September, I paid almost daily visits to the spots frequented by the
Sacred Beetle; and the burrows unearthed by my trowel furnished an
amount of evidence exceeding my fondest hopes. The insects reared in
captivity supplied me with more facts, though these, it is true, were
very scanty in comparison with the rich crop from the open fields. All
told, about a hundred nests, at the lowest computation, passed through
my hands; and they were invariably the graceful pear-shape, never,
absolutely never, the round shape of the pill, never the ball of which
the books tell us.
I myself once shared this error, placing as I did implicit confidence
in the words of the learned authorities. My old hunting-expeditions on
the Plateau des Angles led to no result; my attempts at home-rearing
failed pitifully; and yet I was anxious to give my young readers some
idea of the nest built by the Sacred Beetle. I therefore adopted the
traditional theory of the round shape; and then, taking analogy for my
guide, I made use of the little that I had learnt from other
dung-rollers to attempt an approximate sketch of the Sacred Beetle’s
work. It was an unlucky shot. Analogy no doubt is a valuable servant,
but oh, how poor compared with direct observation! Deceived by this
guide, so often untrustworthy amid the inexhaustible variety of life, I
helped to perpetuate the blunder; and so I hasten to apologize, begging
the reader to dismiss from his mind the little that I have said
heretofore on the probable nest-building methods of the Sacred Beetle.
And now let us unfold the authentic story, admitting as evidence only
facts actually observed again and again. The Sacred Beetle’s nest is
betrayed on the outside by a little heap of earth, by a tiny mound
formed of the superfluous soil which the mother, when closing up the
abode, has been unable to replace, part of the excavation having to be
left empty. Under this mound is a shaft which is rarely more than four
inches in depth, followed by a horizontal gallery, either straight or
winding, which ends in a spacious hall, large enough to contain a man’s
fist. This is the crypt in which the egg lies enveloped in food and
subjected to the incubation of a hot sun baking the ground only a few
inches above it; this is the roomy workshop in which the mother,
unfettered in her movements, has kneaded and shaped the future
nurseling’s food into a pear.
This stercoraceous bread has its main axis lying in a horizontal
position. Its shape and size remind one exactly of those little
Midsummer’s Day pears which, by virtue of their bright colouring, their
flavour and their early ripening, are so popular with the children.
There is a slight variation in the bulk of the pears found. The largest
dimensions are 45 millimetres in length by 30 millimetres in width;
[19] the smallest are 35 millimetres by 28. [20]
Without being as polished as stucco, the surface, which is absolutely
even, is carefully glazed with a thin layer of red earth. At first soft
as potter’s clay, the pyriform loaf soon dries and acquires a stout
crust which refuses to yield to the pressure of the fingers. Wood
itself is no harder. This rind is the defensive wrapper that isolates
the recluse from the world and allows him to consume his victuals in
profound peace. But, should the central mass become dried up, then the
danger is extremely serious. We shall have occasion to refer to the
unhappy lot of the grub condemned to a diet of too stale bread.
What dough does the Scarab’s bakehouse use? Who are the purveyors? The
Horse and the Mule? By no means. Yet that was what I expected—and so
would anybody—after seeing the insect make such energetic raids, for
its own use, upon the overflowing store of an ordinary lump of dung.
That is where it habitually manufactures the rolling ball which it goes
and consumes in some underground retreat.
While coarse bread, full of bits of hay, is good enough for the mother,
she becomes more particular where her children are concerned. She now
wants the very daintiest pastry, rich in nourishment and easily
digested; she wants the ovine manna: not that which the Sheep of a
costive habit scatters in trails of black olives, but that which,
elaborated in a less dry intestine, is fashioned into a single flat
cake. This is the material required, the dough exclusively used. It is
no longer the poor and stringy produce of the Horse, but an unctuous,
plastic, homogeneous thing, soaked through and through with nutritive
juices. Its plasticity and delicacy make it an admirable medium for an
artistic piece of work like the Scarab’s pear, while its alimentary
qualities suit the weak stomach of the new-born grub. There may not be
much of it, but the infant Beetle will find it sufficient for his
needs.
This explains the smallness of these pears, a point which made me
suspicious of the origin of my treasure until I found the mother
present with the provisions. I was unable to see in those little pears
the bill of fare of a future Sacred Beetle, who is so great a glutton
and of so remarkable a size.
It probably also explains my failure in the old days with my cages. In
my profound ignorance of the Sacred Beetle’s domestic life, I used to
supply her with what I could pick up here and there, droppings of Horse
or Mule; and the Beetle refused it for her children and declined to
build a nest. To-day, taught by my experience in the fields, I go to
the Sheep for my supplies and all is well in the cages. Does this mean
that the insect never employs for its breeding-pears materials derived
from the Horse, even if selected from the finest strata and carefully
cleansed from objectionable matter? If the best cannot be obtained, is
the middling refused? I prefer to be cautious and give no opinion. What
I can declare is that I inspected over a hundred burrows with a view to
writing this story, and that in every case, from first to last, the
larva’s provisions had been obtained from the Sheep.
Where is the egg in that nutritive mass so novel in shape? One would be
inclined to place it in the centre of the fat, round paunch. This
central point is best protected against accidents from the outside,
best off in the matter of temperature. Besides, the nascent grub would
here find a deep layer of food on every side of it and would not be
liable to make mistakes in the first mouthfuls. Everything being of the
same kind all round it, there would be no necessity for it to pick and
choose; wherever it chanced to apply its prentice tooth, it could
continue without hesitation its first dainty repast.
All this sounds so very rational that I allowed myself to be led away
by it. In the first pear that I examined, layer by layer, shaving off
slices with my penknife, I looked for the egg in the centre of the
paunch, feeling almost certain of finding it there. To my great
surprise, it was not there. Instead of being hollow, the centre of the
pear is full and consists of one continuous uniform alimentary mass.
My deductions, which any observer in my place would certainly have
shared, seemed very reasonable; the Scarab, however, is of another way
of thinking. We have our logic, of which we are rather proud; the
dung-kneader has hers, which is better than ours in this instance. She
has her own foresight, takes her own precautions; and she places the
egg elsewhere.
But where? Why, in the narrow part of the pear, in the neck, right at
the end! Let us cut this neck lengthwise, taking the necessary
precautions not to damage the contents. It is hollowed into a niche
with polished and shiny walls. This niche is the tabernacle of the
germ, the hatching-chamber. The egg, which is very large in proportion
to the size of the mother, is an elongated oval, about ten millimetres
in length with a diameter of five millimetres at the widest part. [21]
It is white and is separated on all sides from the walls of the chamber
by a slight empty space, the only contact being at the rear end of the
egg, which adheres to the top of the niche. Lying horizontally, in
conformity with the normal position of the pear, the whole of it,
excepting the point of attachment, thus rests upon an air-mattress,
warmest and most buoyant of beds.
Now we know all about it. Let us next try to understand the Scarab’s
logic. Let us find out why she has to make that pear of hers, so
unusual a shape in insect structures; let us seek to explain the
suitability of the egg’s curious position. We are venturing on
dangerous ground when we enquire into the how and wherefore of things.
We easily lose our footing in that mysterious land where the moving
soil gives way beneath us, swallowing the foolhardy in the quicksands
of error. Must we abandon such excursions, because of the risk? Why
should we?
What does our science, so sublime compared with the feebleness of our
resources, so contemptible in the face of the boundless stretches of
the unknown, what does it know of absolute reality? Nothing. The world
interests us only because of the ideas which we form of it. Remove the
idea and everything becomes a desert, chaos, nothingness. An
omnium-gatherum of facts is not knowledge, but at most a cold catalogue
which we must thaw and quicken at the fire of the mind; we must bring
to it thought and the light of reason; we must interpret.
Let us adopt this course to explain the work of the Sacred Beetle.
Perhaps we shall end by attributing our own logic to the insect. After
all, it will be just as remarkable to see a wonderful agreement prevail
between that which reason dictates to us and that which instinct
dictates to the insect.
A grave danger threatens the Sacred Beetle in his grub state: the
drying-up of the food. The crypt in which the larval life is spent has
a layer of earth, some four inches thick, for a ceiling. Of what avail
is this flimsy screen against the torrid heat that beats down upon the
soil, baking it like a brick to a far greater depth than that? At times
the temperature of the grub’s abode mounts towards boiling-point; when
I thrust my hand into it, I feel the hot air of a Turkish bath.
The provisions, therefore, even though they have to last but three or
four weeks, are liable to dry up before that time and to become
uneatable. When, instead of the soft bread of its first meal, the
unhappy grub finds nothing to stay its stomach but a horrible crust,
hard as a pebble and tooth-proof, it is bound to perish of hunger. And
it does actually so perish. I have found numbers of these victims of
the August sun which, after eating plentifully of the fresh food and
digging themselves a cell in it, had succumbed, unable to continue
biting into provisions that had become too hard. There remained a thick
shell, a sort of closed oven, in which the poor thing lay baked and
shrivelled up.
While the grub dies of hunger in a shell which has dried into stone,
the full-grown insect that has completed its transformations dies there
too, for it is incapable of bursting the prison and freeing itself. I
shall come back later to the question of the final emergence and will
say no more about it for the present. Let us confine our attention to
the troubles of the grub.
The drying-up of the victuals is, I have said, fatal to it. This is
proved by the larvæ found baked in their oven; it is also proved, in a
more definite fashion, by the following experiment. In July, the period
of active nidification, I place in wooden or cardboard boxes a dozen
pears unearthed that morning from their native burrows. These boxes,
carefully closed, are put away in the dark, in my study, where the same
temperature prevails as outside. Well, in none of them is the infant
reared: sometimes the egg shrivels; sometimes the worm is hatched, but
very soon dies. On the other hand, in tin boxes or glass receptacles,
everything goes well: not one attempt at rearing fails.
Whence do these differences arise? Simply from this: in the high
temperature of July, evaporation proceeds apace under the permeable
wooden or cardboard screen; the food-pear dries up; and the unfortunate
worm dies of hunger. In the impermeable tin boxes, in the
carefully-sealed glass receptacles, there is no evaporation; the
provisions retain their softness; and the grubs thrive as well as in
their native burrow.
The insect employs two methods to ward off the danger of desiccation.
In the first place, it compresses the outer layer with all the strength
of its stout, flat fore-arms, turning it into a protective rind more
homogeneous and more compact than the central mass. If I break one of
these dried-up provision-boxes, the rind usually comes clean away,
leaving the centre part bare. The whole suggests the shell and kernel
of a nut. The pressure exercised by the mother when manipulating her
pear has affected the surface layer to a depth of a few millimetres,
and this has produced the rind; the influence of the pressure is not
felt lower down, and the result is the big central kernel. In the hot
summer months, the housewife puts her bread into a closed pan, to keep
it fresh. This is what the insect does, in its fashion: by dint of
compression, it covers the family bread with a pan.
The Sacred Beetle does not stop there: she becomes a geometrician
capable of solving a delicate problem of minimum values. Other
conditions being equal, evaporation obviously takes place in proportion
to the extent of the evaporating surface. The alimentary mass must
therefore be given the smallest possible surface, in order to reduce
the waste of moisture as much as possible; at the same time, this
minimum surface must incorporate the maximum aggregate of nutritive
materials, so that the grub may find sufficient nourishment. Now what
is the form that encloses the greatest bulk within the smallest
superficial area? Geometry answers, the sphere.
The Scarab, therefore, shapes the larva’s ration into a sphere (we will
leave the neck of the pear out of the question for the moment); and
this round form is not the result of blind mechanical conditions,
imposing an inevitable shape upon the worker; it is not the violent
effect of the rolling along the ground. We have already seen that, for
the purpose of easier and swifter transit, the insect kneads into a
perfect sphere the materials which it intends to consume at a distance,
without moving that sphere from the spot on which it rests; in short,
we have realized that the round form precedes the rolling.
In the same way, it will be seen presently that the pear destined for
the grub is fashioned in the burrow. It undergoes no rolling-process,
it is not even moved. The Sacred Beetle gives it the requisite outline
exactly as a modelling artist might do, shaping his clay under the
pressure of his thumb.
With the tools which it possesses, the insect could obtain other forms
of a less delicate curve than its pear-shaped piece of work. It could,
for instance, make a rough cylinder, the sausage customary among the
Geotrupes; or, simplifying the work to the utmost, it could leave the
lump without any definite form, just as it happened to find it. Things
would proceed all the faster and would leave more time for playing in
the sun. But no: the Sacred Beetle never chooses any shape but the
sphere, though it necessitates such scrupulous accuracy; she acts as
though she knew the laws of evaporation and geometry from beginning to
end.
It remains for us to examine the neck of the pear. What can be its
object, its use? The reply forces itself upon us irresistibly. This
neck contains the egg, in the hatching-chamber. Now every germ, whether
of plant or animal, needs air, the primary stimulus of life. To admit
that vivifying combustible, the shell of a bird’s egg is riddled with
an endless number of pores. The pear of the Sacred Beetle may be
compared with the egg of the Hen. Its shell is the rind, hardened by
pressure, to avoid untimely desiccation; its nutritive mass, its meat,
its yolk is the soft ball sheltered under the rind; its air-chamber is
the terminal space, the cavity in the neck, where the air envelops the
germ on every side. Where would that germ be better off, for breathing,
than in its hatching-chamber projecting into the atmosphere and giving
free play to the passage of gases through its thin and easily permeable
wall?
In the centre of the mass, on the other hand, aeration is not so easy.
The hardened rind does not possess pores like an egg-shell’s; and the
central kernel is formed of compact matter. The air enters it
nevertheless, for presently the grub will be able to live in it: the
grub, a robust organism which does not need the same tender flutter of
life as the sensitive germ.
Where the adolescent larva thrives, the egg would die of suffocation.
Here is a proof of it. I take a small, wide-necked phial and fill it
with Sheep-dung, the fare required in this case. I push in a bit of
stick and obtain a shaft which shall represent the hatching-chamber.
Down this shaft I place an egg carefully moved from its cell. I close
the orifice and cover up everything with a thickly-heaped layer of the
same material. Here, in all excepting the shape, we have an artificial
reproduction of the Sacred Beetle’s pellet; only, in this instance, the
egg is in the centre of the mass, the place which over-hasty
considerations made us but now believe the most suitable. Well, the
point which we selected is fatal to life. The egg dies there. What has
it lacked? Apparently, proper aeration.
Plenteously enveloped by the clammy mass, which is a bad conductor of
heat, it is also deprived of the mild temperature needed for its
hatching. In addition to air, every germ requires heat. In order to be
as near as possible to the incubator, the germ in the bird’s egg is on
the surface of the yolk and, thanks to its extreme mobility, always
comes to the top, no matter what the position of the egg may be. Thus
the most is made of the maternal heating-apparatus seated upon the
brood.
In the insect’s case, the incubator is the earth, which is warmed by
the sun. Its germ likewise comes close to the heating-apparatus; it
goes as near as it can to the universal incubator, in search of its
spark of life; instead of remaining sunk in the middle of the inert
mass, it takes up its position at the top of a projecting nipple,
lapped on all sides by the warm emanations of the soil.
These conditions, air and warmth, are so fundamental that no
Dung-beetle neglects them. The piles of food hoarded vary in form, as
we shall have an opportunity of seeing: in addition to the pear, such
shapes as the cylinder, the ovoid, the pill and the thimble are
adopted, according to the genus of the manipulator; but, amid this
diversity of outline, one primary feature remains unchanged, and that
is the placing of the egg in a hatching-chamber close to the surface
which allows free access to air and heat. And the most gifted in this
delicate art of knowing just where to place the egg is the Sacred
Beetle with her pear.
I was saying just now that this foremost of dung-kneaders behaved with
a logic that rivals our own. By this time, my statement has been
completely established. Here is something better still. Let us submit
the following problem to our leading scientific lights: a germ is
accompanied by a mass of victuals liable soon to be rendered useless by
desiccation. How should the alimentary mass be shaped? Where should the
egg be laid so as to be easily influenced by air and heat?
The first question of the problem has already been answered. Knowing
that evaporation varies in proportion to the extent of the evaporating
surface, science declares that the victuals shall be arranged in the
form of a ball, because the spherical shape is that which encloses the
greatest amount of material within the smallest surface. As for the
egg, since it requires a protecting sheath to keep it from any harmful
contact, it shall be contained within a thin, cylindrical case; and
this case shall be fixed upon the sphere.
Thus the requisite conditions are fulfilled: the provisions, packed
into a ball, keep fresh; the egg, protected by its slender, cylindrical
sheath, receives the influence of warmth and air without impediment.
The strictly needful has been obtained; but it is very ugly. Utility
has paid no attention to beauty.
An artist corrects the crude work of reason. He replaces the cylinder
by a semi-ellipsoid, so much prettier in form; he joins this ellipsoid
to the sphere by means of a graceful curved surface; and the whole
becomes the pear, the necked gourd. It is now a work of art, a thing of
beauty.
The Sacred Beetle does exactly what æsthetic considerations dictate to
ourselves. Can she, too, have a sense of beauty? Is she able to
appreciate the elegance of her pear? True, she does not see it: she
manipulates it in profound darkness. But she touches it. A poor touch
hers, roughly clad in horn, yet not insensible, after all, to delicate
contours.
It occurred to me to put children’s intelligence to the test with this
problem in æsthetics suggested by the Sacred Beetle’s work. I wanted
very immature minds, hardly opened, still slumbering in the misty
clouds of early childhood, in short, approximating as nearly as
possible to the vague intellect of the insect, if any such
approximation is permissible. At the same time I wanted them to be
clear-headed enough to understand me. I selected some untutored
youngsters, of whom the oldest was six.
I submitted to this tribunal the work of the Sacred Beetle and a
geometrical production of my own fingers, representing in the same
dimensions the sphere surmounted by a short cylinder. Taking each of
them aside, as though for confession, lest the opinion of one should
influence the opinion of another, I sprang my two toys upon them and
asked them which they thought the prettier. There were five of them;
and they all voted for the Sacred Beetle’s pear.
I was struck by this unanimity. The rough little peasant-lad, who has
scarcely yet learnt how to blow his nose, has already a certain sense
of elegance of form. He can distinguish between the beautiful and the
ugly. Can this be also true of the Sacred Beetle? No one who knew what
he was talking about would venture to say yes; no one either would
venture to say no. It is a question that cannot be answered, since we
cannot consult the one and only judge in this case. After all, the
solution might very well be exceedingly simple. What does the flower
know of its glorious corolla? What does the snowflake know of its
exquisite hexagonal stars? Like the flower and the snowflake, the
Sacred Beetle might well be ignorant of the beautiful, though it be her
work.
There is beauty everywhere, on the express condition that there be an
eye capable of recognizing it. Is this eye of the mind, this eye which
appraises correctness of form, to some extent an attribute of the dumb
creation? If the Toad’s ideal of beauty is unquestionably the She-toad,
outside the irresistible attraction of the sexes is there really such a
thing as beauty to an animal? Considered generally, what is beauty,
actually? Beauty is order. What is order? Harmony in the whole design.
What is harmony? Harmony is.... But enough. Answers would follow upon
questions without ever touching the real principle of it all, the
immovable foundation. What a lot of philosophizing over a lump of dung!
It is high time to change the subject.