The Sacred Beetle, and Others

It happened like this. There were five or six of us: myself, the oldest, officially their master but even more their friend and comrade; they, lads with warm hearts and joyous i...

If we ransack the books for information about the habits of the dung-rollers in general and the Sacred Beetle in particular, we find that modern science still clings to some of...

There is no need to return to the Sacred Beetle working in the daylight or consuming his booty underground, either alone, as usually happens, or in the company of a guest: what...

The young shepherd who had been told in his spare time to watch the doings of the Sacred Beetle came to me in high spirits, one Sunday in the latter part of June, to say that he...

Here we are on solid ground, in the domain of facts, of things that can be seen and recorded. How does the Sacred Beetle obtain the maternal pear? To begin with, it is certain t...

Under the thin ceiling of the burrow, the Sacred Beetle’s egg undergoes the varying influences of the sun, the supreme incubator. Consequently there is not, nor can there be, an...

The larva increases in bulk as it eats the walls of its house from the inside. Little by little, the belly of the pear is scooped out into a cell whose capacity grows in proport...

What we have learnt from the Sacred Beetle must not lead us into rash generalizations and make us attribute it in every slightest detail to the other Dung-beetles of the same fa...

If we show instinct doing for the egg what would be done on the advice of reason matured by study and experience, we achieve a result of no small philosophic importance; and an...

First, the output of her ovaries is extremely limited; and nevertheless her race thrives just as much as that of many others whose seed is numerous. Maternal care makes up for t...

After the notabilities of the Dung-beetle tribe, if we omit the Geotrupes, who belong to a different clan, there remains, within the very limited radius of my observation, the O...

To complete the cycle of the year in the adult form, to see one’s self surrounded by one’s sons at the spring festival, to double and treble one’s family: that surely is a most...

In September and October, when the first autumn rains soak the ground and allow the Sacred Beetle to split his natal casket, the Stercoraceous Geotrupes and the Mimic Geotrupes...

The egg takes from one to two weeks to hatch, according as it is laid in October or September. As a rule the hatching takes place in the first fortnight of October. The larva gr...

The duties of paternity are hardly ever imposed on any except the higher animals. The bird excels in them; and the furred folk perform them honourably. Lower in the scale, the f...

Smaller than the Spanish Copris and less particular about a mild climate, the Lunary Copris (C. lunaris, Lin.) will confirm what the Sisyphus has told us of the part played by t...

Begun to-day and dropped to-morrow, taken up again later and again abandoned, according to the chances of the day, the study of instinct makes but halting progress. The changing...

May is the nesting-month of the different Onthophagi and of the Bull Onthophagus in particular. The mothers now go underground to some little depth, under the shelter of the cav...