The Geotrupes: Nest-building 



At the end of the gallery again there is 

 nothing to remind us of the spacious hall, 

 the workshop where Copres, Scarabaei and 

 Gymnopleuri fashion their artistic pears and 

 ovoids, but a mere cul-de-sac of the same 

 diameter as the nest. A veritable drill-hole, 

 if we make allowances for the occasional 

 knots and twists inevitable in boring through 

 stuff that offers more resistance at some places 

 than at others; a winding canal: that is what 

 the Geotrupes' burrow is. 



The contents of the crude dwelling take 

 the form of a sort of sausage or pudding, 

 which fills the lower part of the cylinder and 

 fits it exactly. Its length is not far short of 

 eight inches and its width about an inch and a 

 half, when the thing belongs to the Stercora- 

 ceous Geotrupes. The dimensions are a little 

 smaller in the work of the Mimic Geotrupes. 

 In either case, the sausage is nearly always 

 irregular in shape, now curved, now more 

 or less dented. These imperfections of the 

 surface are due to the accidents of a stony 

 ground, which the insect does not always ex- 

 cavate according to the canons of its art, 

 which favours the straight hne and the per- 

 pendicular. The moulded material faith- 

 fully reproduces all the irregularities of its 

 mould. The lower end is rounded off like 

 295 



