I have said it many a time and I say it again: insects possess sense-faculties of exquisite delicacy attuned to their special trade, faculties of which we can form no conception because we have nothing similar within ourselves. A man blind from birth can have no notion of colour. We are as men blind from birth in the face of the unfathomable mysteries that surround us; and myriads of questions arise to which no answer can ever be given. CHAPTER X THE SPANISH COPRIS: THE HABITS OF THE MOTHER There are two special points to be remembered in the life-history of the Spanish Copris: the rearing of her family; and her pill-rolling talents. 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 the small number of her eggs. Prolific layers, after making a few rough and ready arrangements, abandon their progeny to luck, which often sacrifices a thousand in order to preserve one; they are factories turning out organic matter for life’s comprehensive maw. Almost as soon as hatched, or even before hatching, their offspring for the most part perish devoured. Extermination makes short work of superfluity in the interests of the community at large. That which was destined to live lives, but under another form. These excessive breeders know and can know nothing of maternal affection. The Copres have other and fundamentally different habits. Three or four eggs represent their entire posterity. How are they to be preserved, to a great extent, from the accidents that await them? For them, so few in numbers, as for the others, whose name is legion, existence is an inexorable struggle. The mother knows it and, in order to save her nearest and dearest, sacrifices herself, giving up outdoor pleasures, nocturnal flights and that supreme delight of her race, the investigation of a fresh heap of dung. Hidden underground, by the side of her brood, she never leaves her nursery. She keeps watch; she brushes off the parasitic growths; she closes up the cracks; she drives off any ravagers that may appear: Acari, [34] tiny Staphylini, [35] grubs of small Flies, Aphodii, [36] Onthophagi. [37] In September she climbs to the surface with her family, which, having no further use for her, emancipates itself and henceforth lives as it pleases. No bird could be a more devoted mother.