Agreed. But, in the matter of breathing, the egg is no better off for being shut up, on top of the provisions, in a clay casket quite as air-tight as the jar itself. Examine the thing more closely, however, and you will receive a satisfactory reply. The walls of the hatching-chamber are carefully glazed inside. The mother has taken meticulous pains to give them a stucco-like finish. The vaulted ceiling alone is rugged, because the building-tool now works from the outside and is unable to reach the inner surface of the lid and smooth it. Moreover, in the centre of this curved and embossed ceiling, a small opening has been made. This is the air-hole, which allows of gaseous exchanges between the atmosphere inside the box and that outside. If it were entirely free, this opening would be dangerous: some plunderer might take advantage of it to enter the casket. The mother foresees the risk. She blocks the breathing-hole with a plug made of the ravelled vegetable fibres of the Cow-dung, a stopper which is eminently permeable. It is an exact repetition of that which the various modellers have shown us at the top of their calabashes and pears. All of them are acquainted with the nice secret of the felt stopper as a means of ventilating the egg in a water-tight enclosure. Your name is not an attractive one, my pretty Dung-beetle of the pampas, but your industrial methods are most remarkable. I know some among your fellow-countrymen, however, who surpass you in ingenuity. One of these is _Phanaeus Milon_, a magnificent insect, blue-black all over. The male's corselet juts forward. On the head is a short, broad, flattened horn, ending in a trident. The female replaces this ornament by simple folds. Both carry on the forehead two spikes which form a trusty digging-implement and also a scalpel for dissecting. The insect's squat, sturdy, four-cornered build resembles that of _Onitis Olivieri_, one of the rarities of the neighbourhood of Montpellier. If similarity of shape implied purity of work, we ought unhesitatingly to attribute to _Phanaeus Milon_ short, thick puddings like those made by Olivier's Onitis.[16] Alas, structure is a bad guide where instinct is concerned! The square-chined, short-legged Dung-beetle excels in the art of manufacturing gourds. The Sacred Beetle herself supplies none that are more correctly shaped nor, above all, more capacious. [Footnote 16: I owe this detail on the work of Olivier's Onitis to a note and a sketch communicated by Professor Valery-Mayer, of the Montpellier School of Agriculture.--_Author's Note_.]