A search outside the provisions reveals it me at last. It is below the food, in the sand itself, and has benefited by none of the meticulous cares wherein mothers excel. There is here not a smooth-walled chamber, such as the delicate skin of the new-born larva would seem to demand, but a rough, irregular cavity, the result of a mere falling in rather than of material ingenuity. The grub is to be hatched in this rude crib, at some distance from its provisions. To reach the food, it will have to demolish and pass through a ceiling of sand some millimetres thick. As regards her offspring, the Minotaur mother is an expert in the art of sausage-making, but she knows nothing at all of the endearments of the cradle. Anxious to watch the hatching and observe the growth of the larva, I install my find in cells reproducing as nearly as may be the natural conditions. A glass tube closed at one end of the same diameter as the burrow receives first a bed of moist sand to represent the original soil. On the surface of this layer I place the egg. A little of the same sand forms the ceiling through which the new-born grub must pass to reach the provisions. There are none other than the regulation sausage, rid of its earthy rind. A few careful strokes of the rammer make it occupy the available space. Lastly, a plug of wet, but not dripping cotton-wool fills up the cell completely. This will be a source of permanent moisture, similar to that of the depths in which the mother establishes her family. The provisions will thus remain soft, in accordance with the youthful consumer’s needs. This softness of the food and the flavour produced by the fermentation due to moisture probably have something to say to the instinct to bore deeply at the time of egg-laying. What do the father and mother really want? Do they dig to ensure their own welfare? Do they go so low down in order to find an agreeable temperature and moisture when the fierce summer heat prevails? Not at all. Endowed with a robust constitution and loving the sun’s kisses as other insects do, they both inhabit, until the family is founded, a modest dwelling in a convenient position. Not even the inclemencies of winter drive them to seek a better shelter. At nesting-time it is another matter. They descend to a great depth underground. Why? Because their family, which is hatched about June, must find soft food awaiting it at a time when the heat of summer will bake the soil hard as a brick. The tiny sausage, if it lay at a depth of ten or twenty inches, would become hard as horn and uneatable; and the grub, incapable of biting into the tough ration, would perish. It is important therefore that the victuals should be cellared at a depth where the most violent heat of the sun cannot lead to desiccation.