The Sacred Beetle and Others 



be the performance of one alone. By this 

 solitary confinement, each individual Beetle's 

 work can be studied more easily. 



The interned mother makes hardly any 

 protest against her servitude. Soon she is 

 digging the sand and disappears in it with 

 her pill. Let us give her time to establish 

 her quarters and to get on with her domestic 

 labours. 



Three or four weeks go by. The Beetle 

 has not reappeared upon the surface, a proof 

 of her patient absorption in her maternal 

 duties. At last I remove the contents of the 

 pot, very carefully, layer by layer, until I 

 uncover a spacious burrow. The rubbish 

 from this cavity was heaped up on the 

 surface, forming a little mound. This is the 

 secret chamber, the gynaeceum in which the 

 mother now and for a long time to come 

 keeps watch over her budding family. 



The original pill has disappeared. In its 

 stead are two little pears, elegantly shaped 

 and wonderfully finished: two, not one, as 

 I naturally expected from the information 

 already in my possession. They strike me 

 as being even more delicately and gracefully 

 rounded than the Sacred Beetle's. Perhaps 

 their tiny dimensions cause my preference: 

 maxime miranda in minimis. They measure 

 i66 



