The Spanish Copris: the Mother 



Shall we attribute altruism among families 

 to the Dung-beetle? Shall we do her the 

 signal honour of allowing that she ad- 

 ministers relief to foundlings? That would 

 be madness. The mother who so diligently 

 assists the children of others thinks, beyond 

 a doubt, that she is working for her own, 

 [The victim of my experiment had two pills 

 that belonged to her; my intervention gave 

 her ten more. And in the jar filled with 

 prunes to the top, her assiduous care draws 

 no distinction between the real household 

 and the casual family. Her intellect there- 

 fore is incapable of the most elementary con- 

 ception of quantity; she cannot even dis- 

 tinguish between the singular and the plural, 

 the few and the many. 



Can it be because of the darkness? No, 

 for my frequent visits give the Copris an op- 

 portunity, when the opaque screen is lifted, 

 of looking around her and discovering the 

 strange accumulation, that is If light be really 

 the guide which she lacks. Besides, has she 

 not another means of information? In the 

 natural burrow, the pills, three or at most 

 four in number, all lie on the ground, forming 

 one row only. With my additions, they pile 

 up into four stories. 



In order to clamber to the top, in order 

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