72 THE LIFE AND LOVE OF THE INSECT 



Copris acts likewise. By means of a circular gash made 

 with the cleaver of the shield and the saw of the fore-legs, 

 she separates from the main body a section of the pre- 

 scribed size. For this stroke of the trencher, no hesita- 

 tion is needed, no after-touches that add or subtract. 

 Off-hand and with a plain, decisive cut, a lump is obtained 

 of ''the requisite bulk. 



It now becomes a question of shaping it. Clasping it 

 as best it can hi its short arms, so incompatible, one 

 would think, with work of this kind, the insect rounds 

 the section by the one and 

 only means of pressure. It 

 gravely moves about the 

 hitherto shapeless ball, climbs 

 up, climbs down ; it turns 

 to left and right, above and 

 below ; methodically, it presses 

 a little more here, a little 

 less there ; it improves by 

 new touches, with unchanging 

 patience ; and, in twenty- 

 four hours' time, the angular 

 piece has become a perfect 

 sphere, the size of a plum. In a corner of her crammed 

 studio, the podgy artist, with hardly room to move, has 

 finished her work without once shaking it on its base ; by 

 dint of time and patience, she has obtained the geometrical 

 globe which her clumsy tools and her confined space 

 seemed bound to refuse her. 



The insect continues for a long time yet to improve 

 and lovingly to polish its sphere, gently passing its foot 

 to and fro until the least protuberance has disappeared. 

 Its finikin after-touches look as though they would never 



FIG. 5. The Copris's pill : first 

 state. 



