The Sacred Beetle: the Modelling 



communicating trap-door, will make for the 

 transparent cell which I have arranged for 

 her. She will make for it, of course, only 

 provided that she be in perfect darkness. I 

 therefore make a cardboard cyhnder, closed 

 at the top, and place it over the glass jar. 

 Left standing where it is, the opaque sheath 

 will provide the dusk which the insect wants; 

 suddenly raised, it will give the light which 

 I want. 



Things being thus arranged, I go in quest 

 of a mother who has just withdrawn into 

 solitude with her ball. A morning's search 

 is enough to provide me with what I 

 need. I place the mother and her ball on 

 the surface of the upper layer of earth; I 

 cap the apparatus with its cardboard sheath; 

 and I wait. I say to myself that the Beetle 

 is too persevering to give up work until her 

 egg is housed and that she will therefore dig 

 herself a new burrow, dragging her ball with 

 her as she goes; she will pass through the 

 upper layer of earth, which is not sufficiently 

 thick; she will come upon the deal board, 

 an obstacle similar to the broken stones that 

 often bar her passage in the course of her 

 normal excavations; she will investigate the 

 cause of the impediment and, finding the 

 opening, will descend through this trap-door 

 "3 



