The Sacred Beetle and Others 



moves a little way on with the help of its 

 well-shaped legs; it capsizes again and starts 

 licking again. As the cabin is large and 

 plentifully supplied, the patent-food diet 

 lasts some time. 



The fat babies of the Geotrupes, the 

 Copris and the Sacred Beetle finish at one 

 brief sitting the dainty wherewith their 

 narrow lodge is hung, a dainty frugally 

 served and just sufficient to whet the appetite 

 and prepare the stomach for coarser fare; 

 but the Onthophagus' grub, that puny dwarf, 

 has enough to last it for a week and more. 

 The spacious birth-chamber, which is out of 

 all proportion with the nurseling's size, has 

 permitted this wastefulness. 



At last the real loaf is attacked. In about 

 a month everything is consumed, except the 

 wall of the sack. And now the splendid 

 part played by the hump stands revealed. 

 Glass tubes, which I had got ready in 

 anticipation, allow me to watch the grub at 

 work. Growing plumper and plumper and 

 more and more humpbacked, it withdraws 

 to one end of the cell, which has become a 

 crumbling ruin. Here it builds a casket in 

 which the transformation will take place. 

 Its materials are the digestive residuum, 

 converted into mortar and heaped up in the 



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