The Sacred Beetle in Captivity 



consistency and must be made to adhere to 

 one another; last of all, the stringy bits in 

 the exterior layers, which have to protect the 

 whole structure, must be felted together. 

 How does the clumsy Sacred Beetle, who is 

 so stiff in her movements, accomplish a work 

 of this kind in complete darkness, at the 

 bottom of a hole crammed with provisions 

 and hardly leaving room to stir? When I 

 consider the delicacy of the workmanship 

 and then the rough tools of the worker — 

 angular limbs capable of cutting into hard 

 or even rocky soil — I think of an Elephant 

 trying to make lace. Let whoso can explain 

 this miracle of maternal industry; as for me, 

 I give it up, all the more as I have not had 

 the luck to see the artist at work. We will 

 confine ourselves to describing her master- 

 piece. 



The ball containing the egg is usually the 

 size of an average apple. In the centre is 

 an oval hollow about two-fifths of an inch in 

 diameter. The egg is fixed at the bottom, 

 standing perpendicularly; it is cylindrical, 

 rounded at both ends, yellowish-white and 

 about as large as a grain of wheat, but 

 shorter. The inside of the niche is coated 

 with a shiny, greenish-brown, semi-fluid 

 material, a real stercoral cream, destined to 

 SI 



