THE SACRED BEETLE

It is six or seven thousand years since the Sacred Beetle was first talked about. The peasant of ancient Egypt, as he watered his patch of onions in the spring, would see from time to time a fat black insect pass close by, hurriedly trundling a ball backwards. He would watch the queer rolling thing in amazement, as the peasant of Provence watches it to this day.

The early Egyptians fancied that this ball was a symbol of the earth, and that all the Scarab’s actions were prompted by the movements of the heavenly bodies. So much knowledge of astronomy in a Beetle seemed to them almost divine, and that is why he is called the Sacred Beetle. They also thought that the ball he rolled on the ground contained the egg, and that the young Beetle came out of it. But as a matter of fact, it is simply his store of food.

It is not at all nice food. For the work of this Beetle [12]is to scour the filth from the surface of the soil. The ball he rolls so carefully is made of his sweepings from the roads and fields.

This is how he sets about it. The edge of his broad, flat head is notched with six teeth arranged in a semi-circle, like a sort of curved rake; and this he uses for digging and cutting up, for throwing aside the stuff he does not want, and scraping together the food he chooses. His bow-shaped fore-legs are also useful tools, for they are very strong, and they too have five teeth on the outside. So if a vigorous effort be needed to remove some obstacle the Scarab makes use of his elbows, that is to say he flings his toothed legs to right and left, and clears a space with an energetic sweep. Then he collects armfuls of the stuff he has raked together, and pushes it beneath him, between the four hinder-legs. These are long and slender, especially the last pair, slightly bowed and finished with a sharp claw. The Beetle then presses the stuff against his body with his hind-legs, curving it and spinning it round and round till it forms a perfect ball. In a moment a tiny pellet grows to the size of a walnut, and soon to that of an apple. I have seen some gluttons manufacture a ball as big as a man’s fist.

When the ball of provisions is ready it must be moved to a suitable place. The Beetle begins the journey. He clasps the ball with his long hind-legs and walks with [13]his fore-legs, moving backwards with his head down and his hind-quarters in the air. He pushes his load behind him by alternate thrusts to right and left. One would expect him to choose a level road, or at least a gentle incline. Not at all! Let him find himself near some steep slope, impossible to climb, and that is the very path the obstinate creature will attempt. The ball, that enormous burden, is painfully hoisted step by step, with infinite precautions, to a certain height, always backwards. Then by some rash movement all this toil is wasted: the ball rolls down, dragging the Beetle with it. Once more the heights are climbed, and another fall is the result. Again and again the insect begins the ascent. The merest trifle ruins everything; a grass-root may trip him up or a smooth bit of gravel make him slip, and down come ball and Beetle, all mixed up together. Ten or twenty times he will start afresh, till at last he is successful, or else sees the hopelessness of his efforts and resigns himself to taking the level road.

Sometimes the Scarab seems to enter into partnership with a friend. This is the way in which it usually happens. When the Beetle’s ball is ready he leaves the crowd of workers, pushing his prize backwards. A neighbour, whose own task is hardly begun, suddenly drops his work and runs to the moving ball, to lend a hand to the owner. His aid seems to be accepted [14]willingly. But the new-comer is not really a partner: he is a robber. To make one’s own ball needs hard work and patience; to steal one ready-made, or to invite oneself to a neighbour’s dinner, is much easier. Some thieving Beetles go to work craftily, others use violence.

Sometimes a thief comes flying up, knocks over the owner of the ball, and perches himself on top of it. With his fore-legs crossed over his breast, ready to hit out, he awaits events. If the owner raises himself to seize his ball the robber gives him a blow that stretches him on his back. Then the owner gets up and shakes the ball till it begins rolling, and perhaps the thief falls off. A wrestling-match follows. The two Beetles grapple with one another: their legs lock and unlock, their joints intertwine, their horny armour clashes and grates with the rasping sound of metal under a file. The one who is successful climbs to the top of the ball, and after two or three attempts to dislodge him the defeated Scarab goes off to make himself a new pellet. I have sometimes seen a third Beetle appear, and rob the robber.

But sometimes the thief bides his time and trusts to cunning. He pretends to help the victim to roll the food along, over sandy plains thick with thyme, over cart-ruts and steep places, but he really does very little of the work, preferring to sit on the ball and do nothing. When a suitable place for a burrow is reached the rightful [15]owner begins to dig with his sharp-edged forehead and toothed legs, flinging armfuls of sand behind him, while the thief clings to the ball, shamming dead. The cave grows deeper and deeper, and the working Scarab disappears from view. Whenever he comes to the surface he glances at the ball, on which the other lies, demure and motionless, inspiring confidence. But as the absences of the owner become longer the thief seizes his chance, and hurriedly makes off with the ball, which he pushes behind him with the speed of a pickpocket afraid of being caught. If the owner catches him, as sometimes happens, he quickly changes his position, and seems to plead as an excuse that the pellet rolled down the slope, and he was only trying to stop it! And the two bring the ball back as though nothing had happened.

If the thief has managed to get safely away, however, the owner can only resign himself to his loss, which he does with admirable fortitude. He rubs his cheeks, sniffs the air, flies off, and begins his work all over again. I admire and envy his character.

At last his provisions are safely stored. His burrow is a shallow hole about the size of a man’s fist, dug in soft earth or sand, with a short passage to the surface, just wide enough to admit the ball. As soon as his food is rolled into this burrow the Scarab shuts himself in by stopping up the entrance with rubbish. The ball [16]fills almost the whole room: the banquet rises from floor to ceiling. Only a narrow passage runs between it and the walls, and here sit the banqueters, two at most, very often only one. Here the Sacred Beetle feasts day and night, for a week or a fortnight at a time, without ceasing.

As I have already said, the ancient Egyptians thought that the egg of the Sacred Beetle was within the ball that I have been describing. I have proved that it is not so. One day I discovered the truth about the Scarab’s egg.

A young shepherd who helps me in his spare time came to me one Sunday in June with a queer thing in his hand. It was exactly like a tiny pear that had lost all its fresh colour and had turned brown in rotting. It was firm to the touch and very graceful in shape, though the materials of which it was formed seemed none too nicely chosen. The shepherd assured me there was an egg inside it; for a similar pear, crushed by accident in the digging, had contained a white egg the size of a grain of wheat.[17]

At daybreak the next morning the shepherd and I went out to investigate the matter. We met among the browsing sheep, on some slopes that had lately been cleared of trees.

A Sacred Beetle’s burrow is soon found: you can tell it by the fresh little mound of earth above it. My companion dug vigorously into the ground with my pocket trowel, while I lay down, the better to see what was being unearthed. A cave opened out, and there I saw, lying in the moist earth, a splendid pear upon the ground. I shall not soon forget my first sight of the mother Beetle’s wonderful work. My excitement could have been no greater had I, in digging among the relics of ancient Egypt, found the sacred insect carved in emerald.

We went on with our search, and found a second hole. Here, by the side of the pear and fondly embracing it, was the mother Beetle, engaged no doubt in giving it the finishing touches before leaving the burrow for good. There was no possible doubt that the pear was the nest of the Scarab. In the course of the summer I found at least a hundred such nests.

The pear, like the ball, is formed of refuse scraped up in the fields, but the materials are less coarse, because they are intended for the food of the grub. When it comes out of the egg it is incapable of searching for its [18]own meals, so the mother arranges that it shall find itself surrounded by the food that suits it best. It can begin eating at once, without further trouble.

The egg is laid in the narrow end of the pear. Every germ of life, whether of plant or animal, needs air: even the shell of a bird’s egg is riddled with an endless number of pores. If the germ of the Scarab were in the thick part of the pear it would be smothered, because there the materials are very closely packed, and are covered with a hard rind. So the mother Beetle prepares a nice airy room with thin walls for her little grub to live in, during its first moments. There is a certain amount of air even in the very centre of the pear, but not enough for a delicate baby-grub. By the time he has eaten his way to the centre he is strong enough to manage with very little air.

There is, of course, a good reason for the hardness of the shell that covers the big end of the pear. The Scarab’s burrow is extremely hot: sometimes the temperature reaches boiling point. The provisions, even though they have to last only three or four weeks, are liable to dry up and become uneatable. When, instead of the soft food of its first meal, the unhappy grub finds nothing to eat but horrible crusty stuff as hard as a pebble, it is bound to die of hunger. I have found numbers of these victims of the August sun. The poor things are baked in a sort of closed oven. To lessen this danger [19]the mother Beetle compresses the outer layer of the pear—or nest—with all the strength of her stout, flat fore-arms, to turn it into a protecting rind like the shell of a nut. This helps to ward off the heat. In the hot summer months the housewife puts her bread into a closed pan to keep it fresh. The insect does the same in its own fashion: by dint of pressure it covers the family bread with a pan.

I have watched the Sacred Beetle at work in her den, so I know how she makes her pear-shaped nest.

With the building-materials she has collected she shuts herself up underground so as to give her whole attention to the business in hand. The materials may be obtained in two ways. As a rule, under natural conditions, she kneads a ball in the usual way and rolls it to a favourable spot. As it rolls along it hardens a little on the surface and gathers a slight crust of earth and tiny grains of sand, which is useful later on. Now and then, however, the Beetle finds a suitable place for her burrow quite close to the spot where she collects her building-materials, and in that case she simply bundles armfuls of stuff into the hole. The result is most striking. One day I see a shapeless lump disappear into the burrow. Next day, or the day after, I visit the Beetle’s workshop and find the artist in front of her work. The [20]formless mass of scrapings has become a pear, perfect in outline and exquisitely finished.

The part that rests on the floor of the burrow is crusted over with particles of sand, while the rest is polished like glass. This shows that the Beetle has not rolled the pear round and round, but has shaped it where it lies. She has modelled it with little taps of her broad feet, just as she models her ball in the daylight.

By making an artificial burrow for the mother Beetle in my own workshop, with the help of a glass jar full of earth, and a peep-hole through which I can observe operations, I have been able to see the work in its various stages.

The Beetle first makes a complete ball. Then she starts the neck of the pear by making a ring round the ball and applying pressure, till the ring becomes a groove. In this way a blunt projection is pushed out at one side of the ball. In the centre of this projection she employs further pressure to form a sort of crater or hollow, with a swollen rim; and gradually the hollow is made deeper and the swollen rim thinner and thinner, till a sack is formed. In this sack, which is polished and glazed inside, the egg is laid. The opening of the sack, or extreme end of the pear, is then closed with a plug of stringy fibres.

There is a reason for this rough plug—a most curious [21]exception, when nothing else has escaped the heavy blows of the insect’s leg. The end of the egg rests against it, and, if the stopper were pressed down and driven in, the infant grub might suffer. So the Beetle stops the hole without ramming down the stopper.

About a week or ten days after the laying of the egg, the grub is hatched, and without delay begins to eat its house. It is a grub of remarkable wisdom, for it always starts its meal with the thickest part of the walls, and so avoids making a hole through which it might fall out of the pear altogether. It soon becomes fat; and indeed it is an ungainly creature at best, with an enormous hump on its back, and a skin so transparent that if you hold it up to the light you can see its internal organs. If the early Egyptian had chanced upon this plump white grub he would never have suspected it to contain, in an undeveloped state, the sober beauty of the Scarab!

When first it sheds its skin the insect that appears is not a full-grown Scarab, though all the Scarab’s features can be recognised. There are few insects so beautiful as this delicate creature with its wing-cases living in front of it like a wide pleated scarf and its fore-legs [22]folded under its head. Half transparent and as yellow as honey, it looks as though it were carved from a block of amber. For four weeks it remains in this state, and then it too casts its skin.

Its colouring now is red-and-white,—so many times does the Sacred Beetle change its garments before it finally appears black as ebony! As it grows blacker it also grows harder, till it is covered with horny armour and is a full-grown Beetle.

All this time he is underground, in the pear-shaped nest. Great is his longing to burst the shell of his prison and come into the sunshine. Whether he succeeds in doing so depends on circumstances.

It is generally August when he is ready for release, and August as a rule is the driest and hottest month of the year. If therefore no rain falls to soften the earth, the cell to be burst and the wall to be broken defy the strength of the insect, which is helpless against all that hardness. The soft material of the nest has become an impassable rampart; it has turned into a sort of brick, baked in the kiln of summer.

I have, of course, made experiments on insects that are ready to be released. I lay the hard, dry shells in a box where they remain dry; and sooner or later I hear a sharp, grating sound inside each cell. It is the prisoner scraping the wall with the rakes on his forehead [23]and his fore-feet. Two or three days pass, and no progress seems to have been made.

I try to help a couple of them by opening a loophole with my knife; but these favoured ones make no more progress than the others.

In less than a fortnight silence reigns in all the shells. The prisoners, worn out with their efforts, have all died.

Then I take some other shells, as hard as the first, wrap them in a wet rag, and put them in a corked flask. When the moisture has soaked through them I rid them of the wrapper, but keep them in the flask. This time the experiment is a complete success. Softened by the wet the shells are burst by the prisoner, who props himself boldly on his legs, using his back as a lever, or else scrapes away at one point till the walls crumble to pieces. In every case the Beetle is released.

In natural conditions, when the shells remain underground, the same thing occurs. When the soil is burnt by the August sun it is impossible for the insect to wear away his prison, which is hard as a brick. But when a shower comes the shell recovers the softness of its early days: the insect struggles with his legs and pushes with his back, and so becomes free.

At first he shows no interest in food. What he wants above all is the joy of the light. He sets himself in the sun, and there, motionless, basks in the warmth.[24]

Presently, however, he wishes to eat. With no one to teach him, he sets to work, exactly like his elders, to make himself a ball of food. He digs his burrow and stores it with provisions. Without ever learning it, he knows his trade to perfection.