The Sacred Beetle and Others 



which attracts my attention for the first time. 

 This botanical detail is of little importance : 

 all that we need know is that the dark green 

 of the pills has disappeared under the thick 

 white crystalline growth stippled with black 

 specks. 



I restore the two pills to the Copris keep- 

 ing watch over her third. I replace the 

 opaque sheath and leave the insect un- 

 disturbed in the dark. In an hour's time or 

 less, I look to see how things are getting on. 

 The parasitic vegetation has entirely dis- 

 appeared, cut down, extirpated to the last 

 stalk. The magnifying-glass fails to reveal 

 a trace of what, a little while before, was a 

 dense thicket. The insect has used its rake, 

 those notched legs, to some purpose and the 

 surface of the pill is once more in the un- 

 blemished condition necessary for health. 



The other experiment is a more serious 

 one. With the point of my pen-knife, I 

 make a gash in a pill at the upper end and 

 lay bare the egg. Here we have an artificial 

 breach not unlike those which might be 

 caused naturally, but of much greater size. 

 I give back to the mother the violated cradle, 

 threatened with disaster unless she Inter- 

 venes. But she does intervene and that 

 quickly, once darkness comes. The ragged 

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