For lack of space at home and of a well-furnished flour-bin, the latter restricts the number of her children, which is sometimes reduced to one. Can this be due to impotence of the ovaries? No. I have shown in an earlier chapter that, given free scope and a well-spread table, the mother is capable of producing twice her usual family and more. I described how for the three or four ovoids I substituted a loaf kneaded with my paper-knife. By means of this artifice, which increased the space in the narrow enclosure of the jar and provided fresh materials for modelling, I obtained from the mother a family of seven in all. It was a magnificent result, but far inferior to that derived from the following experiment, which was better managed. This time I take away the pellets as they are formed, all but one, so as not to discourage the mother by my kidnapping. If she found nothing at all left of her previous products, she might perhaps weary of her fruitless labour. When the main loaf, of her constructing, has all been used, I replace it with another, made by myself. I go on doing this, removing the ovoid that has just been completed and renewing the finished lump of food until the insect refuses to accept any more. For five or six weeks the sorely tried mother never loses her patience and each time begins all over again and perseveringly restocks her empty nursery. At last the dog-days arrive, the brutal season which arrests all life by its excessive heat and dryness. My loaves, however carefully made, are scorned. The mother, overcome with torpor, refuses to work. She buries herself in the sand, at the foot of the last pellet, and there, motionless, awaits the liberating September rain. The indefatigable creature has bequeathed me thirteen ovoids, each modelled to perfection, each supplied with an egg; thirteen, a number unparalleled in the Copris’ annals; thirteen, ten more than the normal laying. The proof is established: if the horned Dung-beetle strictly limits her family, it is not through penury of the ovaries, but through fear of famine. Is it not thus that things happen in our country, which, the statisticians tell us, is threatened with depopulation? The clerk, the artisan, the civil servant, the workman, the small shopkeeper are a daily increasing multitude with us; and all of them, having hardly enough to live upon, refrain as far as possible from adding to the numbers gathered around their ill-furnished table. When bread is short, the Copris is not wrong in becoming almost a celibate. Why should we cast a stone at his imitators? The motive is one of prudence on either side. It is better to live alone than surrounded by hungry mouths. The man who feels strong enough to struggle with poverty for himself shrinks in dismay from the poverty of a crowded home.