THE SACRED BEETLE 29 



happened to find it. Things would proceed all the faster 

 and would leave more time for playing in the sun. 

 But no : the Scarab adopts exclusively the sphere, so 

 difficult in its precision ; she acts as though she knew 

 the laws of evaporation and geometry from A to Z. 



It remains for us to examine the neck of the pear. 

 What can be its object, its use ? The reply forces itself 

 upon us irresistibly. This neck contains the egg, in the 

 hatching-chamber. Now every germ, whether of plant or 

 animal, needs air, the primary stimulus of life. To admit 

 that vivifying combustible, the air, the shell of a bird's 

 egg is riddled with an endless number of pores. The 

 pear of the Sacred Beetle may be compared with the egg 

 of the hen. Its shell is the rind, hardened by pressure, 

 with a view to avoiding untimely desiccation ; its nutri- 

 tive mass, its meat, its yolk is the soft ball sheltered 

 under the rind ; its air-chamber is the terminal space, the 

 cavity in the neck, where the air envelopes the germ on 

 every side. Where would that germ be better off, for 

 breathing, than in its hatching-chamber projecting into 

 the atmosphere and giving free play to the interchange 

 of gases through its thin and easily penetrable wall and 

 especially through the felt of scrapings that finishes the 

 nipple ? 



In the centre of the mass, on the other hand, aeration 

 is not so easy. The hardened rind does not possess the 

 eggshell's pores ; and the central kernel is formed of 

 compact matter. The air enters it, nevertheless, for 

 presently the worm will be able to live in it, the worm, 

 a robust organism less difficult and nice than the first 

 throbs of life. 



These conditions, air and warmth, are so fundamental 

 that no Dung-beetle neglects them. The nutritive hoards 



