The Scarab occupies the glazed workshop. I catch her at work, with her broad foot laid on the rough sketch of the pear. But, startled by the sudden light, she remains motionless, as though petrified. This lasts a few seconds. Then she turns her back upon me and awkwardly ascends the inclined plane, to reach the darkling heights of her gallery. I give a glance at the work, take note of its shape, its position and its aspect, and restore darkness with the cardboard sheath. Let us not prolong the indiscretion, if we would renew the test. My sudden, brief visit gives us a first insight into the mysterious work. The ball, at first exactly spherical, now has a stout pad circumscribing a sort of shallow crater. The work reminds me, in greatly reduced proportions, of certain prehistoric pots, with round bellies, thick lips around the mouth and a neck strangled by a narrow groove. This rude outline of a pear tells us of the insect’s method, a method identical with that of Pleistoscene man ignorant of the potter’s wheel. The plastic ball, girt with a circle at one end, has been hollowed out in a groove, the starting-point of the neck; it has, moreover, been drawn out a little into an obtuse projection. In the centre of this projection, a pressure has been effected, which, causing the matter to fall back over the edges, has produced the crater, with its shapeless lips. Circular enlacement and pressure have sufficed for this first part of the work. Towards evening, I pay a fresh sudden visit, amid complete silence. The insect has recovered from its excitement of the morning and gone down again to its workshop. Flooded with light and baffled by the strange events to which my artifices give rise, it at once makes off and takes refuge in the upper storey. The poor mother, persecuted by my illuminations, runs up into the thick of the darkness, but regretfully, with hesitating strides. The work has progressed. The crater has become deeper; the thick lips have disappeared, are thinner, closer together, drawn out into the neck of a pear. The object, however, has not changed its place. Its position, its aspect are exactly as I noted them before. The side that lay on the ground is still at the bottom, at the same point; the side that faced upwards is still at the top; the crater that lay on my right has been replaced by the neck, still on my right. Whence comes a conclusion completely confirming my previous statements: no rolling; mere pressure, which kneads and moulds. The next day, a third visit. The pear is finished. Its neck, yesterday a yawning sack, is now closed. The egg, therefore, is laid; the work has been carried through and demands only the finishing touches of general polishing, touches upon which the mother, so intent on geometrical perfection, was doubtless engaged at the time when I disturbed her.