THE SPANISH COPRIS 65 



Once he has found his provisions, at night or in the 

 evening twilight, he digs a burrow under the heap. It 

 is a rough cave, large enough to hold a big apple. Here 

 is introduced, piecemeal, the matter forming the roof 

 or, at least, lymg on the door-sill ; here is engulfed, 

 without definite shape, an enormous supply of victuals, 

 bearing eloquent witness to the insect's gluttony. As long 

 as the hoard lasts, the Copris, engrossed in the pleasures 

 of the table, does not return to the surface. The hermit- 

 age is not abandoned until the larder is emptied, when 

 the insect recommences its nocturnal searches, finds 

 a new treasure and digs itself a new temporary estab- 

 lishment. 



Plying this trade as a setter-in of ordure without 

 preliminary manipulation, the Copris, evidently, is 

 absolutely ignorant, for the time being, of the art of 

 kneading and modelling a globular loaf. Besides, his 

 short, awkward legs seem radically opposed to any such 

 art. 



In May, or June at latest, comes laying-time. The 

 insect, itself so ready to fill its belly with the most sordid 

 materials, becomes particular, where the portion of its 

 family is concerned. Like the Sacred Beetle, it now wants 

 the soft produce of the sheep, deposited in a single lump. 

 Even when copious, the cake is buried on the spot in 

 its entirety. Not a trace of it remains outside. Economy 

 demands that it be gathered to the last crumb. 



You see : no journey, no carting, no preparations. 

 The cake is carried down to the cellar by armfuls and at 

 the identical spot where it is lying. The insect repeats, 

 with an eye to its grubs, what it did when working for 

 itself. As for the burrow, which is marked by a large 

 mole-hill, it is a roomy cave dug at a depth of some 



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