CHAPTER VI 



THE SACRED BEETLE: THE LARVA 



UNDER the thin ceiling of the burrow, 

 the Sacred Beetle's egg undergoes the 

 varying influences of the sun, the supreme 

 incubator. Consequently there is not nor 

 can there be any fixed date for the quickening 

 of the germ. In very hot, sunny weather, I 

 have obtained a grub five or six days after 

 the egg was laid; with a more moderate 

 temperature, I have had to wait until the 

 twelfth day. June and July are the hatch- 

 ing-months. 



As soon as the new-born grub has flung 

 aside its swaddling-clothes, it forthwith bites 

 Into the walls of its chamber. It starts eat- 

 ing its house, not anyhow, but with unerring 

 wisdom. If it nibbled at the thin side of its 

 cell — and there is nothing to dissuade it, for 

 here as elsewhere the materials are of 

 excellent quality — if its mandibles scraped 

 the extreme end of the nipple, the weakest 

 point, it would make a breach in the pro- 

 tecting wall before it had sufficient putty to 



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