142 SOCIAL LIFE IN THE INSECT WORLD 



such zeal, has such an instinct for hkely hiding-places, 

 that after a brief search I am rich beyond my ambitions. 

 Behold me the owner of six couples of Sisyphus beetles : 

 an unheard-of number, which I had never hoped to 

 obtain. 



For their maintenance a wire-gauze cover suffices, with 

 a bed of sand and diet to their taste. They are very 

 small, scarcely larger than a cherry-stone. Their shape 

 is extremely curious. The body is dumpy, tapering to 

 an acorn-shaped posterior ; the legs are very long, 

 resembling those of the spider when outspread ; the 

 hinder legs are disproportionately long and curved, 

 being thus excellently adapted to enlace and press the 

 little pilule of dung. 



Mating takes place towards the beginning of May, on 

 the surface of the soil, among the remains of the sheep- 

 dung on which the beetles have been feeding. Soon the 

 moment for establishing the family arrives. With equal 

 zeal the two partners take part in the kneading, transport, 

 and baking of the food for their offspring. With the 

 file-like forelegs a morsel of convenient size is shaped 

 from the piece of dung placed in the cage. Father 

 and mother manipulate the piece together, striking it 

 blows with their claws, compressing it, and shaping 

 it into a ball about the size of a big pea. 



As in the case of the Scarabceus sacer, the exact 

 spherical form is produced without the mechanical 

 device of rolling the ball. Before it is moved, even 

 before it is cut loose from its point of support, the 

 fragment is modelled into the shape of a sphere. The 

 beetle as geometer is aware of the form best adapted 

 to the long preservation of preserved foods. 



