The Sacred Beetle: the Pear 



turning it into a protective rind more 

 homogeneous and more compact than the 

 central mass. If I break one of these 

 dried-up provision-boxes, the rind usually 

 comes clean away, leaving the centre part 

 bare. The whole suggests the shell and 

 kernel of a nut. The pressure exercised 

 by the mother when manipulating her pear 

 has affected the surface layer to a depth 

 of a few millimetres and this has produced 

 the rind; the influence of the pressure is not 

 felt lower down and the result is the big 

 central kernel. In the hot summer months, 

 the housewife 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 covers the family bread with a 

 pan. 



The Sacred Beetle does not stop there : 

 she becomes a geometrician capable of 

 solving a delicate problem of minimum 

 values. Other conditions being equal, eva- 

 poration obviously takes place in propor= 

 tion to the extent of the evaporating sur- 

 face. The alimentary mass must therefore 

 be given the smallest possible surface, 

 in order to reduce the waste of moisture as 

 much as possible; at the same time, this 

 minimum surface must incorporate the 



95 



