The Sacred Beetle and Others 



know and can know nothing of maternal 

 affection. 



The Copres have other and fundamentally 

 different habits. Three or four eggs repre- 

 sent their entire posterity. How are they 

 to be preserved, to a great extent, from 

 the accidents that await them? For them, 

 so few In numbers, as for the others, 

 whose name is legion, existence is an inexor- 

 able struggle. The mother knows it and, in 

 order to save her nearest and dearest, sacri- 

 fices herself, giving up out-door pleasures, 

 nocturnal flights and that supreme delight of 

 her race, the investigation of a fresh heap of 

 dung. Hidden underground, by the side of 

 her brood, she never leaves her nursery. She 

 keeps watch; she brushes off the parasitic 

 growths; she closes up the cracks; she drives 

 off any ravagers that may appear: Acari,^ 

 tiny Staphylini,^ grubs of small Flies, 

 Aphodii,^ Onthophagi.^ In September, she 

 climbs to the surface with her family, 

 which, having no further use for her, 

 emancipates Itself and henceforth lives as it 



1 Mites or Ticks. — Translator's Note. 



2 Rove-beetles. — Translator's Note. 



3 A genus of Dung-beetles. — Translator's Note. 



4 Cf. Chapters XL, XVII. and XVIII. of the present vol- 

 ume. — Translator's Note. 



2l6 



