Let us inspect the heap about nine or ten o’clock in the morning. We must be diligent and patient, for the advent of the laying mothers is subject to capricious delays and often makes us wait in vain. Chance favours us. Here is a Metallic Cetonia dropping in from some neighbouring spot. In wide circles she flies once or twice over the heap; she inspects the lie of the land from above and selects a point easy of access. Whoosh! She pounces upon it, digs with her head and legs and forthwith makes her way in. Which way will she go? At first the sense of hearing tells us of the direction followed: we hear a rustling of withered leaves as long as the insect is working through the dry outer layer. Then nothing but silence: the Cetonia has reached the moist centre of the heap. Here and here only must the laying take place, so that the grub emerging from the egg may find soft food at hand without seeking for it. Let us leave the mother to her task and return a couple of hours later. But first let us reflect upon what has just occurred. A magnificent insect, a living gem of goldsmith’s work, was slumbering just now at the heart of a rose, on the satin of its petals, in the sweetness of its scent. And now this voluptuary in her golden tunic, this sipper of ambrosia, suddenly leaves her flower and buries herself in corruption; she abandons the sumptuous hammock, fragrant of attar, to burrow in nauseous filth. Whence this sudden depravity? She knows that her grub will regale itself on what she herself abhors; and overcoming her repugnance, not even giving it a thought, she takes the plunge. Is she actuated by the memory of her larval days? But what memory of food can she have after a year’s interval, above all after an absolute remoulding of her organism? To draw the Cetonia hither, to make her come from the rose to this putrid heap, there is something better than the memory of the belly; there is a blind, irresistible impulse, which acts in the most logical manner under cover of a seeming insanity. Let us now return to the heap of leaf-mould. The rustle of the withered leaves has informed us approximately: we know in what direction to make our search, a minute and hesitating search, for we have to follow the mother’s trail. Nevertheless, guided by the materials thrust aside on the insect’s passage, we reach our goal. The eggs are found, scattered without order, always singly, with no preparatory measures. It is enough that there should be close at hand soft vegetable matter, suitably fermented.