Note 4 — Chapter VIII · A DUNG-BEETLE OF THE PAMPAS

How does the awkward insect manage to carry so delicate and complex a piece of building through? Exploring the pampas as I do through the eyes of an intermediary, my only guide in this question is the structure of the work, a structure whence we can deduct the workman’s methods without going far wrong. I therefore imagine the labour to proceed like this: a small carcass is found, the oozing of which has softened the underlying loam. The insect collects more or less of this loam, according to the richness of the vein. There are no precise limits here. If the plastic material abound, the collector is lavish with it and the provision-box becomes all the more solid. Then enormous calabashes are obtained, exceeding a hen’s egg in volume and formed of an outer wall a couple of centimetres thick.4 But a mass of this description is beyond the strength of the modeller, is badly handled and betrays, in its outline, the clumsiness of an over-difficult task. If the material be rare, the insect confines its harvesting to what is strictly necessary; and then, freer in its movements, it obtains a magnificently regular gourd.