A DUNG-BEETLE OF THE PAMPAS 109 



Even thus do the Copris and the Sacred Beetle act 

 when preparing, on the top of their round ball, the bowl 

 in which the egg will be laid before the final manipulation 

 of the ovoid or pear. 



In this first business, Phanaeus is simply a potter. So 

 long as it be plastic, any clay serves his turn, however 

 meagrely it be saturated with the juices emanating from 

 the carcass. 



He now becomes a pork-butcher. With his toothed 

 knife, he carves, he saws some tiny shreds from 

 the rotten animal ; he tears off, cuts away what he 

 deems best suited to the grub's entertainment. He 

 collects all these fragments and mixes them with choice 

 loam in the spots where the sanies abounds. The whole, 

 cunningly kneaded and softened, becomes a ball obtained 

 on the spot, without any rolling process, hi the same way 

 as the globe of the other pill-manufacturers. Let us 

 add that this ball, a ration calculated by the needs of 

 the grub, is very nearly constant in size, whatever the 

 thickness of the final calabash. The sausage-meat is now 

 ready. It is set in place hi the wide-open clay bowl. 

 Loosely packed, without compression, the food will re- 

 main free, will not stick to its wrapper. 



Next, the potter's work is renewed. The insect presses 

 the thick lips of the clayey cup, rolls them out and applies 

 them to the forcemeat preparation, which is eventually 

 contained by a thin partition at the top and by a thick 

 layer every elsewhere. A large circular pad is left on 

 the top partition, which is slender in view of the weak- 

 ness of the grub that is to perforate it later, when making 

 for the provisions. Manipulated in its turn, this pad is 

 converted into a hemispherical hollow, in which the egg 

 is forthwith laid. 



