THE SACRED BEETLE 27 



boxes, carefully closed, are put away in the dark, in my 

 study, where the same temperature reigns as outside. 

 Well, in none of them is the infant reared : sometimes the 

 egg shrivels ; sometimes the worm is hatched, but very 

 soon dies. On the other hand, in tin boxes or glass 

 receptacles, things go very well : not one attempt at 

 rearing fails. 



Whence do these differences arise ? Simply from this : 

 in the high temperature of July, evaporation proceeds 

 apace under the pervious wooden or cardboard screen ; 

 the alimentary pear dries up and the poor worm dies of 

 hunger. In the impermeable tin boxes, in the carefully- 

 sealed glass receptacles, evaporation does not take place, 

 the provisions retain their softness and the grubs thrive 

 as well as in their native burrow. 



The insect employs two methods to ward off the danger 

 of desiccation. In the first place, it compresses the outer 

 layer with all the strength of its wide armlets, turning 

 it into a protecting rind more homogeneous and more 

 compact than the central mass. If I smash one of these 

 well-dried boxes of preserves, the rind usually breaks off 

 sharp and leaves the kernel in the middle bare. The 

 whole suggests the shell and the almond of a filbert. The 

 pressure exercised by the mother when manipulating her 

 pear has influenced the surface layer to a depth of a few 

 millimetres and from this results the rind ; further down, 

 the pressure has not spread, whence proceeds the central 

 kernel. In the hot summer months, my housekeeper 

 puts her bread into a closed pan, to keep it fresh. This 

 is what the insect does, in its fashion : by dint of com- 

 pression, it confines the bread of the family in a pan. 



The Sacred Beetle goes further still : she becomes a 

 geometrician capable of solving a fine problem of mini- 



