36 THE LIFE AND LOVE OF THE INSECT 



earth of the jar just as I took it from the burrow, with 

 the wrinkled covering which it acquired in rolling across 

 country during the journey from the place where it was 

 found to the spot where the insect intended to use it. 

 In that case, I find it at the bottom of my jar converted 

 into a pear, itself wrinkled and encrusted with earth 

 and sand over the whole of its surface, thus proving that 

 the pear-shaped outline has not demanded a general re- 

 casting of the mass, inside as well as out, but has been 

 obtained by simple pressure and by drawing out the neck. 

 This is how, in the vast majority of cases, things 

 happen in the normal state. Almost all the pears which 

 I dig up in the fields are crusted, unpolished, some more, 

 others less. If we put on one side the inevitable en- 

 crustations due to the carting across fields, these blemishes 

 would seem to point to a prolonged rolling in the interior 

 of the subterranean manor. The few which I find per- 

 fectly smooth, especially those wonderfully neat specimens 



, furnished by my voleries, dispel this mistake entirely. 



1 They show us that, with materials collected near at hand 

 and stored away unshaped, the pear is modelled wholly 

 without rolling ; they prove to us that, where the others 

 are concerned, the earthy wrinkles of the rind are not 

 the signs of a rolling manipulation at the bottom of the 

 workshop, but simply the marks of a fairly long journey 

 on the surface of the ground. 



To be present at the construction of the pear is no 

 easy matter : the sombre artist obstinately refuses to 

 do any work as soon as the light reaches her. She needs 

 absolute darkness for her modelling ; and I need light 

 if I would see her at work. It is impossible to unite the 

 two conditions. Let us try, nevertheless ; let us seize 

 by fragments the truth which hides itself in its fulness. 



