The Sacred Beetle and Others 



prolonged fast. He who thinks so is mis- 

 taken. She stays. And yet she has eaten 

 nothing since she came underground, taking 

 good care not to touch the loaf, which, 

 divided Into equal portions, will provide the 

 sustenance of the family. The Copris is 

 touchingly scrupulous where the children's 

 inheritance is concerned: she is a devoted 

 mother, who braves hunger rather than let 

 her offspring suffer privation. 



She braves it for a second reason: to 

 mount guard around the cradles. From the 

 end of June onwards the burrows are 

 difficult to find, because the mounds dis- 

 appear through the action of storm or wind 

 or the feet of the passers-by. The few 

 which I succeed In discovering always contain 

 the mother dozing beside a group of pills, in 

 each of w^hlch a grub, now nearing its com- 

 plete development, feasts on the fat of the 

 land. 



My dark appliances, flower-pots filled with 

 fresh sand, confirm what the fields have 

 taught me. Buried with provisions in the 

 first fortnight In May, the mothers do not 

 reappear on the surface, under the glass lid. 

 [They keep hidden in the burrow after laying 

 their eggs; they spend the sultry dog-days 

 with their ovolds, watching them, no doubt, 



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