The Spanish Copris: the Mother 



succeed until the afternoon in closing the 

 aperture; and then the job is anything but 

 well done. The borrowed mother, on the 

 other hand, has not taken twenty minutes to 

 remedy the accident most excellently. 



She does even more. After the most 

 important part is finished and the afflicted 

 grub succoured, she stands all day, all night 

 and the next day on the newly-closed pill. 

 She brushes it daintily with her tarsi to get 

 rid of the layer of earth; she obliterates the 

 dents, smooths tbe rough places and adjusts 

 the curve, until from a shapeless and soiled 

 pill it becomes an ovoid 'vying in precision 

 with those which she had already manu- 

 factured in her glass jar. 



Such care bestowed upon a strange grub 

 deserves attention. I must go on. I slip 

 into the jar a second pill, similar to the fore- 

 going, ruptured at the top, with an opening 

 larger than on the occasion, one about a six- 

 teenth of an inch square. The greater the 

 difficult}', the more praiseworthy will the 

 restoration be. 



It is, indeed, difficult to close. The grub, 

 a fat baby, is wildly gesticulating and excre- 

 ting through the window. Leaning over the 

 hole, its new mother seems to console it. 

 She is like a nurse bending over the cradle. 



229 



