The Lunary Copris 



ovoids, each modelled to perfection, each 

 supplied with an egg; thirteen, a number un- 

 paralleled in the Copris' annals; thirteen, 

 ten more than the normal laying. 



[The proof is established: if the horned 

 Dung-beetle strictly limits her family, it is 

 not through penury of the ovaries, but 

 through fear of famine. 



Is it not thus that things happens in our 

 country, which, the statisticians tell us, is 

 threatened with depopulation? The clerk, 

 the artisan, the civil servant, the workman, 

 the small shopkeeper are a daily-increasing 

 multitude with us; and all of them, having 

 hardly enough to live upon, refrain as far 

 as possible from adding to the numbers 

 gathered around their ill-furnished table. 

 When bread is short, the Copris is not 

 wrong in becoming almost a celibate. Why 

 should we cast a stone at his Imitators? 

 The motive Is one of prudence on either 

 side. It is better to hve alone than sur- 

 rounded by hungry mouths. The man who 

 feels strong enough to struggle with poverty 

 for himself shrinks in dismay from the 

 poverty of a crowded home. 



In the good old days, the tiller of the soil, 

 the peasant, the backbone of the nation, 

 found that a numerous family added to his 



2(>S 



