COPROPHAGOUS BEETLES AXD METHODS OF REARING THEM 3 



could not be induced to leave 'her brood. If the balls are taken 

 away and the nest is destroyed, the beetle usually begins another 

 home immediately, but she may construct feeding burrows for a 

 few weeks first. One female was taken from her brood and placed 

 on top of the soil in the box, but she seemed to make no effort to 

 find her progeny, and several days later was found in a feeding 

 burrow. When the egg balls were removed from a nest and put on 

 sand in salve boxes, they matured normally. 



In a test in which the egg balls were taken from a female shortly 

 after their construction, 6 nests, containing a total of 24 eggs, were 

 constructed successively from May 10 to July 26. In another test, 

 12 nests, containing a total of 41 eggs, were obtained from a reared 

 female over a 14-month period. As a check in this test a female 

 in another box was allowed to stay with her progeny for long 

 periods, but this female constructed only 5 nests, containing a total 

 of 15 eggs. It appears that in the field only 3 or 4 broods normally 

 are produced by one female in a year, but in the laboratory from 

 6 to 10 broods can be obtained by removing the progeny. 



Figure 1. — Brood chamber of Copris remotus. Usually from 4 to 6 egg balls are made 



in one chamber. 



The egg is usually, but not always, located at one of the longi- 

 tudinal poles of the ball. A slight elevation indicates the point 

 at which an egg will be found in a small, smooth depression just 

 under the surface. The egg is elongate, slightly curved, rounded 

 at both ends, smooth, and glistening white with a very faint green 

 tint. The average diameters are 4.33 by 2.90 mm. 



It is somewhat difficult to determine exactly the length of the 

 incubation period, but it appears to be from 5 to 10 days under 

 laboratory conditions. The period of development from egg hatch- 

 ing to adult emergence in the spring and summer averaged 49 days, 



