14 FABRE'S BOOK OF INSECTS 



her building-materials, and in that case she simply bundles 

 armfuls of stuff into the hole. The result is most striking. 

 One day I see a shapeless lump disappear into the burrow. 

 Next day, or the day after, I visit the Beetle's workshop and 

 find the artist in front of her work. The formless mass of 

 scrapings has become a pear, perfect in outline and exquisitely 

 finished. 



The part that rests on the floor of the burrow is crusted 

 over with particles of sand, while the rest is polished like 

 glass. This shows that the Beetle has not rolled the pear 

 round and round, but has shaped it where it lies. She has 

 modelled it with little taps of her broad feet, just as she models 

 her ball in the daylight. 



By making an artificial burrow for the mother Beetle in 

 my own workshop, with the help of a glass jar full of earth, 

 and a peep-hole through which I can observe operations, I 

 have been able to see the work in its various stages. 



The Beetle first makes a complete ball. Then she starts 

 the neck of the pear by making a ring round the ball and 

 applying pressure, till the ring becomes a groove. In this 

 way a blunt projection is pushed out at one side of the ball. 

 In the centre of this projection she employs further pressure 

 to form a sort of crater or hollow, with a swollen rim ; and 

 gradually the hollow is made deeper and the swollen rim 

 thinner and thinner, till a sack is formed. In this sack, which 

 is polished and glazed inside, the egg is laid. The opening of 

 the sack, or extreme end of the pear, is then closed with a 

 plug of stringy fibres. 



There is a reason for this rough plug a most curious 

 exception, when nothing else has escaped the heavy blows of 

 the insect's legs. The end of the egg rests against it, and, if 

 the stopper were pressed down and driven in, the infant grub 

 might suffer. So the Beetle stops the hole without ram- 

 ming down the stopper. 



