The Spanish Copris: the Eggs 



making preparations for the egg, what 

 wonder if they continue underground their 

 own ball-making speciality? " 



If we leave out of the question the neck 

 of the pear and the projecting tip of the 

 ovoid, details much more difficult to explain, 

 there remains the most important part so far 

 as bulk is concerned, the globular part, a 

 repetition of the thing which the insect makes 

 outside the burrow; there remains the pellet 

 with which the Sacred Beetle plays in the 

 sunshine, sometimes without making any 

 other use of it, the ball which the Gymno- 

 pleurus rolls peacefully over the turf. 



Then what is the object here of the 

 globular form, the best preventative of desic- 

 cation during the heat of summer? This 

 property of the sphere and of its near 

 neighbour, the ovoid, is an accepted physical 

 fact; but it is only by accident that these 

 shapes are the right ones to overcome that 

 difficulty. A creature built for rolling balls 

 across the fields goes on making balls under- 

 ground. If the grub fare all the better for 

 finding tender foodstuffs under its mandibles 

 to the very end, that is a capital thing for 

 the grub, but It is no reason why we should 

 extol the instinct of the mother. 



So I argued, saying to myself that, before 

 185 



