The Spanish Copris: the Mother 



ho family to consider, she now becomes very- 

 abstemious, even to the point of prolonged 

 fasting. The Hen sitting on her eggs for- 

 gets to eat for some weeks; the watchful 

 Copris mother forgets it during a third part 

 of the year. The Dung-beetle outdoes the 

 bird in maternal self-abnegation. 



Now what does this self-sacrificing mother 

 do underground? To what household cares 

 can she devote the period of so long a fast? 

 My appliances provide a satisfactory answer. 

 I possess, as I have said, two kinds. One 

 consists of glass jars with a thin layer of sand 

 and a cardboard case to create darkness; the 

 other of large pots filled with earth and 

 closed with a pane of glass. 



At any moment when I raise the opaque 

 sheath of the first, I find the mother now 

 perched upon the top of her ovoids, now on 

 the ground, half-erect, smoothing the bulging 

 curve with her fore-leg. On rarer occasions, 

 she is dozing in the midst of the heap. 



The manner in which she employs her 

 time is obvious. She watches her treasure 

 of pills; her inquisitive antennae sound them 

 to discover what is happening inside; she 

 listens to the nurselings growing; she touches 

 up faulty spots; she polishes and repohshes 

 the surfaces in order to delay the desiccation 

 239 



