There is no mistaking what has happened: the mother has collected and kneaded into one lump the numerous fragments brought down one after the other; out of all those particles she has made a homogeneous piece, by dint of mashing them, amalgamating them, stamping on them. I repeatedly surprise the baker on the top of the colossal loaf beside which the Sacred Beetle’s pill cuts so poor a figure: she goes strolling about on the convex surface, which sometimes measures a decimetre [16] across; she pats the mass, consolidates it, levels it. I can give but a glance at the curious scene. As soon as she is perceived, the pastry-cook slides down the curved slope and huddles out of sight beneath the pie. To follow the work further, to study its close detail, we must resort to artifice. The difficulty is almost nil. Either my long practice with the Sacred Beetle has made me more skilful in methods of research, or else the Copris is less circumspect and endures more readily the annoyance of a long captivity; for I succeed, without the least impediment, in following all the phases of the nest-making at my heart’s ease. I employ two methods, each fitted to instruct me as to certain particulars. Whenever the voleries supply me with a few large cakes, I move these, with the mother, and place them in my study. The receptacles are of two sorts, according to whether I want light or darkness. For light, I employ glass jars with a diameter more or less the same as that of the burrows, say about a dozen centimetres. [17] At the bottom of each is a thin layer of fresh sand, quite insufficient to allow the Copris to bury herself in it, but convenient, nevertheless, to save the insect from the slippery footing provided by the glass and to give it the illusion of a soil similar to that of which I have deprived it. On this layer the jar receives the mother and her loaf. I need hardly say that the startled insect would not undertake anything under conditions of light, however softly modulated. It demands complete obscurity, which I produce by means of a cardboard box encasing the cylinder. By carefully raising this box a little, I am able, presently, when I feel inclined, to surprise the captive at her work and even to follow her doings for a time. The method, the reader will see, is much simpler than that which I used when I wished to see the Sacred Beetle engaged in modelling her pear. The easier-going mood of the Copris lends itself to this simplification, which would be none too successful with the other. A dozen of these eclipsed apparatus are thus arranged on the large table in the laboratory. Any one seeing the set would take them for an assortment of groceries in whity-brown paper bags.