THE SACRED BEETLE: THE MODELLING
How does the Scarab obtain the maternal pear? It is certain, to begin
with, that this is in no wise shaped by the mechanism of conveyance
along the ground: the shape is incompatible with a rolling in every
direction, at haphazard. We might accept that for the belly of the
gourd; but the neck, the ellipsoid nipple, hollowed into a
hatching-chamber! This delicate work could never result from violent,
unmeasured jerks. The goldsmith’s jewel is not hammered on the
blacksmith’s anvil. Together with other reasons, all good in evidence,
already quoted, the pear-shaped outline delivers us, I hope, once and
for all, from the antiquated belief that placed the egg inside a
roughly-jolted ball.
To produce his masterpiece, the sculptor retires to his den. Even so
the Sacred Beetle. She shuts herself down in her crypt, to model, in
contemplative seclusion, the materials introduced. Two opportunities
offer for obtaining the block to be worked. In the one case, the Scarab
gathers from the heap, according to the method which we know, a choice
block, which is kneaded into a ball on the spot and which is already
spherical before it is set in motion. Were it only a question of
provisions intended for her own meals, she would never act otherwise.
When she thinks the ball of sufficient bulk, if the place do not suit
her wherein to dig the burrow, she sets out with her rolling burden,
walking at random till she lights upon a favourable spot. During the
journey, the ball, without improving upon the perfect sphere which it
was at the start, hardens a little on the surface and becomes encrusted
with earth and little grains of sand. This earthy rind, picked up on
the road, is an authentic sign of a more or less long excursion. The
detail is not without importance; it will serve us presently.
Less frequently, the spot close to the heap whence the block has been
extracted satisfies the insect as suitable for the excavation of the
burrow. The soil is free from pebbles and easy to dig. Here, no journey
is necessary, nor, therefore, any ball convenient for transit. The soft
biscuit of the sheep is gathered and stored as found and enters the
workshop a shapeless mass, either in one piece, or, if need be, in
different lumps.
This case occurs seldom in the natural state, because of the coarseness
of the ground, which abounds with broken stones. 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 voleries, on the other hand, where
the earthy layer has been purged with the sieve, it is the usual case.
Here the earth is easy to dig at any point; wherefore the mother,
working for her laying, is content to lower the nearest morsel
underground, without giving it any definite shape.
Whether the storing without preliminary ball or conveyance be achieved
in the fields or in my voleries, the final result is most striking. One
day, I see a shapeless lump disappear into the crypt. The next day, or
the day after, I visit the workshop and find the artist face to face
with her work. The uncouth mass of the start, the loose shreds
introduced by armfuls have become a pear of perfect accuracy and
conscientious finish.
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 Scarab
manipulates it, the pear, which is still quite soft, has become soiled
with grains of earth on the side that touches the floor of the
workshop; on the remainder, which is the larger part, it retains the
delicate finish which the insect was able to give it.
The inferences to be drawn from these minutely-observed 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 then it would
have been soiled with earth all over. Besides, its projecting neck
precludes this mode of fabrication. It has not even been turned from
one side to the other, as is loudly proclaimed by its unblemished upper
surface. The Scarab, therefore, has moulded it where it lies, without
turning or shifting it in any way; she has modelled it with little taps
of her broad battledores, just as when we saw her model her ball in the
daylight.
Let us now return to the usual case, in the open. The materials then
come from a distance and are introduced 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? The answer would present no serious difficulty if, limiting
my ambition to the results obtained, I sacrificed the means employed.
It would be enough for me, as I have often done, to capture the mother
in her burrow with her ball and carry one and all home, to my animal
laboratory, to watch events at first hand.
A large glass jar is filled with earth, sifted, moistened and heaped to
the desired depth. I place the mother and her beloved pill, which she
holds embraced, on the surface of this artificial soil. I stow away the
apparatus in a half-light and wait. My patience is not very long tried.
Urged by the labour of the ovaries, the insect resumes its interrupted
work.
In certain cases, I see it, still on the surface, destroying its 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 cherished object in her bewilderment. It is an act of wise
hygienics. A scrupulous inspection of the morsel gathered in haste,
among lawless competitors, is often necessary, for supervision is not
always easy on the harvesting-spot itself, in the midst of thieves and
robbers. The ball may contain a blend of little Onthophagi, of
Aphodians, which have not been noticed in the heat of acquisition.
These involuntary intruders, finding themselves very comfortable in the
heart of the mass, would themselves make good use of the contemplated
pear, much to the detriment of the legitimate consumer. The ball must
be purged of this starveling brood. The mother, therefore, destroys it,
reduces it to atoms, scrutinizes it. Then, out of the collected
remnants, the ball is remade, stripped of its 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 earth of the
jar just as I took it from the burrow, with the wrinkled covering which
it acquired in rolling across country during the journey from the place
where it was found to the spot where the insect intended to use it. In
that case, I find it at the bottom of my jar converted into a pear,
itself wrinkled 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 in the normal
state. Almost all the pears which I dig up in the fields are crusted,
unpolished, some more, others less. If we put on one side the
inevitable encrustations due to the carting across fields, 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 voleries,
dispel this mistake entirely. They show us that, with materials
collected near at hand and stored away unshaped, the pear is modelled
wholly without rolling; they prove to us that, where the others are
concerned, the earthy wrinkles of the rind are not the signs of a
rolling manipulation at the bottom of the workshop, but 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
sombre 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 work. It is impossible to unite the two
conditions. Let us try, nevertheless; let us seize by fragments the
truth which hides itself in its fulness.
The arrangements made are as follows: I once more take the large glass
jar. I cover the bottom with a layer of earth a few inches in
thickness. To obtain the transparent workshop necessary for my
observations, I fix a tripod on the earthy layer and, on this support,
a decimetre [10] high, I place a round deal slab of the same diameter
as the jar. The glass-walled chamber thus marked out will represent the
roomy crypt in which the insect works. In the edge of the deal slab, a
hollow is cut, large enough to permit of the passage of the Sacred
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
den which I have arranged for her. She will make for it, of course,
only provided that she be in perfect darkness. I therefore contrive a
cardboard cylinder, closed at the top, and place the glass apparatus
inside it. Left standing where it is, the opaque sheath will provide
the dusk which the Scarab demands; suddenly raised, it will give the
light which I require on my side.
Things being thus arranged, I go in search of a mother lately removed
from her natural lodging with her ball. A morning 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. The insect, stubborn at its work so long as the egg
is not deposited, will dig itself a new burrow, dragging its ball with
it as it goes; it will pass through the upper layer of earth, which is
not sufficiently thick; it will come upon the deal board, an obstacle
similar to the broken stones that often bar its passage in the course
of its normal excavations; it 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. Thus
prophesies my foresight. 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 stop my distrustful
worker. By way of greater precaution, before entering, I put on silent
slippers. And——whoosh! The cylinder is removed. Capital! My
expectations are fully justified.
The Scarab occupies the glazed workshop. I catch her at work, with her
broad foot laid on the rough sketch 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 darkling heights of her gallery. I give a
glance at the work, take note of its shape, its position and its
aspect, and restore darkness with the cardboard sheath. Let us not
prolong the indiscretion, if we would renew the test.
My sudden, brief visit gives us a first insight into the mysterious
work. The ball, at first exactly spherical, now has a stout pad
circumscribing a sort of shallow crater. The work reminds me, in
greatly reduced proportions, of certain prehistoric pots, with round
bellies, thick lips around the mouth and a neck strangled by a narrow
groove. This rude outline of a pear tells us of the insect’s method, a
method identical with that of Pleistoscene man ignorant of the potter’s
wheel.
The plastic ball, girt with a circle at one end, has been hollowed out
in a groove, the starting-point of the neck; it has, moreover, been
drawn out a little into an obtuse projection. In the centre of this
projection, a pressure has been effected, which, causing the matter to
fall back over the edges, has produced the crater, with its shapeless
lips. Circular enlacement and pressure have sufficed for this first
part of the work.
Towards evening, I pay a fresh sudden visit, amid complete silence. The
insect has recovered from its excitement of the morning and gone down
again to its workshop. Flooded with light and baffled by the strange
events to which my artifices give rise, it at once makes off and takes
refuge in the upper storey. The poor mother, persecuted by my
illuminations, runs up into the thick of the darkness, but regretfully,
with hesitating strides.
The work has progressed. The crater has become deeper; the 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, its aspect are exactly as I noted them before. The side that
lay 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. Whence comes a
conclusion completely confirming my previous statements: no rolling;
mere pressure, which kneads and moulds.
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
has been carried through 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 affair escapes my observation. I see
quite clearly, in the main, how the hatching-chamber of the egg is
obtained: the thick pad surrounding the original crater is thinned and
flattened out under the pressure of the feet and lengthened into a sack
the mouth of which gradually narrows. Up to this point, the work
provides its own explanation. But we have no explanation of the
exquisite perfection of the cell wherein the egg is to hatch, when we
think of the insect’s rigid tools, the wide, toothed armlets whose
jerky awkwardness suggests the spasmodic movements of an automaton.
With this clumsy equipment, excellently adapted to coarse work though
it be, how does the Scarab obtain the natal dwelling, the oval nest so
daintily polished and glazed within? Does the foot, a regular saw,
fitted with enormous teeth, begin to rival the painter’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 occasion to
repeat it: the tool does not make the workman. The insect exerts its
gifts as a specialist with any kind of tool wherewith 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 with which the
Sacred Beetle rips the earth is used by her 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 placing the egg; and this plug, as its
hairy structure shows, has not been subjected to the pressure which,
throughout the rest of the work, crams the smallest projecting scrap
into the mass and causes it to disappear.
Why this arrangement at the extreme pole, a very curious exception,
when every elsewhere the pear has received the powerful blows of the
insect’s foot? 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. The mother, aware of the risk, blocks up
the hole without ramming the stopper: the air in the hatching-chamber
is thus more easily renewed; and the egg escapes the dangerous
concussion of the compressing paddle.