SELF-DENIAL OF THE SPANISH COPRIS 



emnly she moves about on the still shapeless mass, 

 climbs up, climbs down, turns to right and left, above 

 and below, touching and re-touching with unvarying 

 patience. Finally, after twenty-four hours of this work, 

 the piece that was all corners has become a perfect sphere, 

 the size of a plum. There in her cramped studio, with 

 scarcely room to move, the podgy artist has completed 

 her work without once shaking it on its base : by dint of 

 time and patience she has obtained the exact sphere which 

 her clumsy tools and her confined space seemed to render 

 impossible. 



For a long time she continues to polish up the globe 

 with affectionate touches of her foot, but at last she is 

 satisfied. She climbs to the top, and by simple pressure 

 hollows out a shallow cavity. In this basin she lays 

 an egg. 



Then, with extreme caution and delicacy, she brings 

 together the sides of the basin so as to cover the egg, and 

 carefully scrapes the sides towards the top, which begins 

 to taper a little and lengthen out. In the end the ball 

 has become ovoid, or egg-shaped. 



The insect next helps herself to a second piece of the 

 cut loaf, which she treats in the same way. The remain- 

 der serves for a third ovoid, or even a fourth. The 

 Sacred Beetle, you remember, made a single pear-shaped 



[115] 



