The Burrow 



digs, versed as she is in the properties of 

 the perpendicular, which economizes labour 

 while giving the greatest depth. She is the 

 engineer, always in touch with the working- 

 face of the shaft. The other is her 

 labourer. He is stationed in the rear, ready 

 to load the rubbish on his horny hod. Later, 

 the excavatrix becomes a baker: she kneads 

 the cakes for the children into cyhnders ; the 

 father is then the baker's boy. He brings 

 her from outside the wherewithal for making 

 flour. As in every well-regulated house- 

 hold, the mother is minister of the interior, 

 the father minister of the exterior. This 

 would explain the invariable position in their 

 cylindrical home. The future will tell us if 

 these conjectures truly correspond with the 

 reality. 



For the moment, let us examine at our 

 leisure, in the comfort of our own home, 

 the central clod, so laboriously acquired. It 

 contains a preserved foodstuff in the shape 

 of a sausage nearly as long and as thick as a 

 man's finger. This is composed of a dark, 

 compact material, arranged in layers, which 

 we recognize as the Sheep-pellets reduced to 

 small crumbs. Sometimes the dough is fine 

 and almost homogeneous from one end of 

 91 



