THE SACRED BEETLE: THE MODELLING
Here we are on solid ground, in the domain of facts, of things that can
be seen and recorded. How does the Sacred Beetle obtain the maternal
pear? To begin with, it is certain that this shape is not achieved by
the process of transport, for it is not at all what one would get from
haphazard rolling in all directions. The belly of the gourd might be
made in that way; but the neck, the elliptical nipple hollowed into a
hatching-chamber: that delicate work could never result from a series
of violent, irregular bumps. A goldsmith does not hammer out a jewel on
a blacksmith’s anvil! Together with other sound reasons already
adduced, the pear-shaped outline delivers us, I hope, once and for all,
from the antiquated belief that the egg has its home inside a
roughly-jolted sphere.
To produce his masterpiece, the sculptor retires to his den. Even so
the Sacred Beetle. She shuts herself in her crypt, with the materials
which she has brought down there, in order to concentrate upon her
modelling. The block out of which she is to shape her pear may be
obtained in two ways. Sometimes the Beetle manages to secure from the
heap, by the method familiar to us, a fine mass of material which is
kneaded into a ball on the spot and which is a perfect sphere before it
is set in motion. Were it only a question of provisions intended for
her own meal, she would never act otherwise.
When the ball is deemed big enough, if the place does not suit her
wherein to dig the burrow, she sets out with her rolling burden, going
at random till she lights upon a favourable spot. On the way, the ball,
without becoming any rounder than it was to start with, hardens a
little on the surface and is encrusted with earth and tiny grains of
sand. This earthy rind, picked up on the road, is an authentic sign of
a more or less long journey. The detail is not without importance; we
shall find it useful presently.
At other times, the Beetle may hit upon a suitable site for her burrow
close to the heap which has provided her block. The soil may be free
from pebbles and easy to dig. In that case there is no need of any
travelling, and consequently no need to make a ball. The soft droppings
of the Sheep are gathered and stored as found, entering the workshop as
a shapeless mass, either in one lump or, if need be, in several.
This rarely happens under natural conditions, because of the roughness
of the ground, which is full of stones and flints. Sites practicable
for easy digging are few and far between; and the insect has to roam
about, with its burden, to find them. In my cages, on the other hand,
where the layer of earth has been passed through a sieve, it is the
usual case. Here the soil is easy to dig at any point; and so the
mother, who is anxious to get her eggs laid, merely lowers the nearest
lump underground, without waiting to give it any definite form.
Whether this storing without any preliminary modelling or carting take
place in the fields or in my cages, the ultimate result is most
striking. One day, I see a shapeless lump disappear into the crypt.
Next day, or the day after, I visit the workshop and find the artist in
front of her work. The original formless mass, the armfuls of scrapings
carried down, have become a pear perfect in outline and exquisitely
finished.
The artistic object bears the marks of its method of manufacture. The
part that rests upon the bottom of the cavity is crusted over with
earthy particles; all the rest is of a glossy polish. Owing to its
weight, owing also to the pressure exercised when the Beetle
manipulated it, the pear, while still quite soft, became soiled with
grains of earth on the side that touched the floor of the workshop; on
the remainder, which is the larger part, it has retained the delicate
finish which the insect was able to give it.
The inferences to be drawn from these carefully noted details are
obvious: the pear is no turner’s work; it has not been obtained by any
sort of rolling on the ground of the spacious studio, for in that case
it would have been soiled with earth all over. Besides, its projecting
neck eliminates this method of fabrication. And its unblemished upper
surface is eloquent testimony that it has not even been turned from one
side to the other. The Beetle, therefore, has moulded it where it lies,
without turning or shifting it at all; she has modelled it with little
taps of her broad paddles, just as we saw her model her ball in the
daylight.
Let us now return to what usually happens in the free state. The
materials then come from a distance and are carried into the burrow in
the form of a ball covered with soil on every part of its surface. What
will the insect do with this sphere which contains the paunch of the
future pear ready-made? It would be easy to answer this if I concerned
myself only with results, without troubling how those results were
obtained. It would be enough for me, as I have often done, to capture
the mother in her burrow with her ball and take the whole lot home, to
my insect laboratory, in order to keep a close watch on events.
I fill a large glass jar with earth, sifted, moistened and heaped to
the desired depth. I place the mother and the beloved pill which she is
clasping on the surface of this artificial soil. I stow away the
apparatus in a dim corner and wait. My patience is not tried very long.
Urged by the insistent ovaries, the Beetle resumes her interrupted
work.
In certain cases, I see her, still on the surface, destroying her ball,
ripping it up, cutting it to pieces, shredding it. This is not in the
least the act of one in despair who, finding herself a captive, breaks
the precious object in her madness. It is based on sound hygienics. A
scrupulous inspection of the morsel which she has gathered in haste,
among lawless competitors, is often necessary, for supervision is not
always easy on the harvest-field itself, in the midst of thieves and
robbers. The ball may be harbouring a collection of little Onthophagi
and Aphodii who passed unnoticed in the heat of acquisition.
These involuntary intruders, finding themselves very well-off in the
heart of the mass, would make good use of the future pear, much to the
detriment of the legitimate consumer. The ball must be purged of this
hungry brood. The mother, therefore, pulls it to pieces and scrutinizes
the fragments closely. Then the sorted bits are carefully put together
again and the ball remade, this time without any earthy rind. It is
dragged underground and becomes an immaculate pear, always excepting
the surface touching the soil.
Oftener still, the ball is thrust by the mother into the soil in the
jar just as I took it from the burrow, still with the rough crust which
it has acquired in its cross-country rolling from the place where it
was obtained to the place where the insect intends to use it. In that
event, I find it at the bottom of my jar transformed into a pear, but
still rough and encrusted with earth and sand over the whole of its
surface, thus proving that the pear-shaped outline has not demanded a
general recasting of the mass, inside as well as out, but has been
obtained by simple pressure and by drawing out the neck.
This is how, in the vast majority of cases, things happen under normal
conditions. Almost all the pears that I dig up in the fields have rinds
and are unpolished, some more, others less. If we put on one side the
inevitable incrustations due to the carting-process, these blemishes
would seem to point to a prolonged rolling in the interior of the
subterranean manor. The few which I find perfectly smooth, especially
those wonderfully neat specimens furnished by my cages, dispel this
mistake entirely. They show us that, when the materials are collected
near the burrow and stored away unshaped, the pear is modelled wholly
without rolling; they prove to us that, in other cases, the lines of
earth and grit on the outside of the ball are not a sign of its having
been rolled to and fro in the workshop, but are simply the marks of a
fairly long journey on the surface of the ground.
To be present at the construction of the pear is no easy matter: the
mystery-loving artist obstinately refuses to do any work as soon as the
light reaches her. She needs absolute darkness for her modelling; and I
need light if I would see her at her task. It is impossible to unite
the two conditions. Let us try, nevertheless; let us catch some
glimpses of the truth whose fulness eludes our vision.
The arrangements made are as follows: I once more take the big jar. I
cover the bottom with a layer of earth two or three inches deep. To
obtain the transparent workshop necessary for my observations, I fix a
tripod on the earthy layer and, on this support, about four inches in
height, I place a round piece of deal of the same diameter as the jar.
The glass-walled chamber thus marked out will represent the roomy crypt
in which the insect works. A piece is scolloped out of the edge of the
deal block, large enough to permit of the passage of the Beetle and her
ball. Lastly, above this screen, I heap a layer of earth as deep as the
jar allows.
During the operation, a portion of the upper earth falls through the
opening and slips down to the lower space in a wide inclined plane.
This was a circumstance which I had foreseen and which was
indispensable to my plan. By means of this slope, the artist, when she
has found the communicating trap-door, will make for the transparent
cell which I have arranged for her. She will make for it, of course,
only provided that she be in perfect darkness. I therefore make a
cardboard cylinder, closed at the top, and place it over the glass jar.
Left standing where it is, the opaque sheath will provide the dusk
which the insect wants; suddenly raised, it will give the light which I
want.
Things being thus arranged, I go in quest of a mother who has just
withdrawn into solitude with her ball. A morning’s search is enough to
provide me with what I need. I place the mother and her ball on the
surface of the upper layer of earth; I cap the apparatus with its
cardboard sheath; and I wait. I say to myself that the Beetle is too
persevering to give up work until her egg is housed and that she will
therefore dig herself a new burrow, dragging her ball with her as she
goes; she will pass through the upper layer of earth, which is not
sufficiently thick; she will come upon the deal board, an obstacle
similar to the broken stones that often bar her passage in the course
of her normal excavations; she will investigate the cause of the
impediment and, finding the opening, will descend through this
trap-door to the lower compartment, which, being free and roomy, will
represent to the insect the crypt whence I have just removed it. But
all this takes time; and I must wait for the morrow to satisfy my
impatient curiosity.
The hour has come: let us go and see. The study-door was left open
yesterday: the mere sound of the door-handle might disturb and stop my
distrustful worker. By way of greater precaution, before entering I put
on noiseless slippers. And now, whoosh! The cylinder is removed.
Capital! My forecast was correct.
The Beetle occupies the glazed studio. I surprise her at work, with her
broad foot laid on the rough model of the pear. But, startled by the
sudden light, she remains motionless, as though petrified. This lasts a
few seconds. Then she turns her back upon me and awkwardly ascends the
inclined plane, to reach the dim heights of her gallery. I give a
glance at the work, take note of its shape and its position, and once
more restore darkness with the cardboard sheath. Let us not prolong our
intrusion, if we would renew the test.
My sudden, short visit gives us some idea of the mysterious work. The
ball, which at first was absolutely spherical, is now depressed at the
top into a sort of shallow crater with a swollen rim. The thing reminds
me, on a very much smaller scale, of certain prehistoric pots, with a
round belly, a thick-lipped mouth and a narrow groove round the neck.
This rough model of the future pear tells us of the insect’s method, a
method identical with that of pleistocene man ignorant of the potter’s
wheel.
The plastic ball, ringed at one end, has had a groove made in it, the
starting-point of the neck of the pear; it has also been drawn out
slightly into a rather blunt projection. In the centre of this
projection pressure has been applied. The first stage of the work
therefore consists merely in placing a ring round the ball and applying
pressure.
Towards evening I pay another sudden visit, in complete silence. The
insect has recovered from its excitement of the morning and gone down
again to its workshop. Troubled by the flood of light, baffled by the
strange events to which my artifices give rise, it at once makes off
and takes refuge in the upper story. The poor mother, persecuted by
these illuminations, moves away into the darkest recesses; but she goes
regretfully, with hesitating steps.
The work has progressed. The crater has become deeper; its thick lips
have disappeared, are thinner, closer together, drawn out into the neck
of a pear. The object, however, has not changed its place. Its position
and direction are exactly as I noted them before. The side that rested
on the ground is still at the bottom, at the same point; the side that
faced upwards is still at the top; the crater that lay on my right has
been replaced by the neck, still on my right. All of which gives
conclusive proof of my earlier statements: there is no rolling, but
only pressure, which kneads and shapes.
The next day, a third visit. The pear is finished. Its neck, yesterday
a yawning sack, is now closed. The egg, therefore, is laid; the work is
completed and demands only the finishing touches of general polishing,
touches upon which the mother, so intent on geometrical perfection, was
doubtless engaged at the time when I disturbed her.
The most delicate part of the business escapes my observation. Roughly
speaking, I can see plainly how the egg’s hatching-chamber is obtained:
the thick pad surrounding the original crater is thinned and flattened
under the pressure of the feet and is lengthened into a sack the mouth
of which gradually narrows. Up to this point the work provides its own
explanation. But, when we think of the insect’s rigid tools, its broad,
toothed fore-arms, whose spasmodic movements remind us of the stiff
gestures of an automaton, we are left without any explanation of the
exquisite perfection of the cell which is to be the hatching-chamber of
the egg.
With this crude equipment, excellently adapted to pickaxe-work though
it be, how does the Scarab obtain the natal dwelling, the oval nest so
daintily polished and glazed within? Does her foot, a regular saw,
fitted with enormous teeth, begin to rival the artist’s brush in
delicacy from the moment when it is inserted through the narrow orifice
of the sack? Why not? I have said elsewhere, and this is the moment to
say it again: the tool does not make the workman. The insect exercises
its own particular talents with any kind of tool with which it is
supplied. It can saw with a plane or plane with a saw, like the model
workman of whom Franklin tells us. The same strong-toothed rake which
the Sacred Beetle uses to open up the earth she also employs as a
trowel and brush wherewith to glaze the stucco of the chamber in which
the grub will be born.
In conclusion, one more detail concerning this hatching-chamber. At the
extreme end of the neck of the pear, one point is always pretty clearly
distinguished: it bristles with stringy fibres, while the rest of the
neck is carefully polished. This is the plug with which the mother has
closed the narrow opening after carefully depositing the egg; and this
plug, as its hairy structure shows, has not been subjected to the
pressure exerted over all the rest of the mass, working into it any
projecting bits, however small, till not the slightest sign of
roughness remains.
Why does the extreme end of the pear receive this special treatment, a
most curious exception, when nothing else has eluded the heavy blows of
the insect’s legs? The reason is that the hind-end of the egg rests
against this plug, which, were it pressed down and driven in, would
transmit the pressure to the germ and imperil its safety. So the
mother, aware of the risk, stops the hole without ramming down the
stopper: the air in the hatching-chamber is thus more easily renewed;
and the egg escapes the dangerous activity of the powerful rammer.