The Spanish Copris: the Mother 



weakling he so well knew how to do, only 

 a few days before. A poor power of recol- 

 lection, If indeed there be such a power under 

 that flat skull! However, in the long run 

 and thanks to the evaporation of the ejected 

 materials, the short-memoried plumber ends 

 by stopping up the window. Nearly half a 

 day has been spent in trowel-work. 



The idea occurs to me to try whether the 

 mother will come to the distressed one's help 

 in like circumstances. We have seen her 

 diligently repairing the ceiling which I 

 smashed above the egg. Will she do for the 

 big grub what she did for the sake of the 

 germ? Will she restore the rent pill in 

 which the plasterer is helplessly floundering? 



To make the experiment more conclusive, 

 I select pills that do not belong to the mother 

 entrusted with the work of restoration. I 

 picked them up in the fields. They are far 

 from regular, are all dented because of the 

 stony soil on which they lay, a soil not easily 

 conv^ertible into a roomy workshop and con- 

 sequently unsuited to exact geometry. They 

 are moreover encrusted with a reddish rind, 

 due to the ferruginous sand in which I packed 

 them in order to avoid dangerous jolting on 

 the road. In short, they differ a good deal 

 from those elaborated in a jar, with plenty 



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