The Gymnopleuri 



a round shape, which evaporates less quickly 

 because of its smaller surface. The egg 

 requires unrestricted air and the heat of the 

 sun's rays, conditions which are fulfilled in 

 the one case by the pear with its neck and in 

 the other by the ovoid with its pointed end. 



Laid in June, the egg of either species of 

 Gymnopleuri hatches in less than a week. 

 The average is five or six days. Any one 

 who has seen the larva of the Sacred Beetle 

 knows, so far as essentials go, the larva of 

 the two small pill-rollers. In each case It is 

 a big-bellied grub, curved into a hook and 

 carrying a hump or knapsack which contains 

 a portion of the mighty digestive apparatus. 

 The body is cut off slantwise at the back 

 and forms a stercoral trowel, denoting habits 

 similar to those of the Sacred Beetle's larva. 



We see repeated. In fact, the pecularities 

 described in the story of the big pill-roller. 

 In the larval state, the Gymnopleuri also are 

 great excreters, ever ready with mortar to 

 make good the imperilled dweUing. They 

 instantly repair the breaches which I make, 

 either to observe them in the privacy of their 

 home or to provoke their plasterlng-industry. 

 They fill up the chinks with putty, solder the 

 parts that become disjointed, mend the 

 broken cell. When the nymphosis ap- 

 177 



