This brief analysis tells us all about Phanæus Milo’s table. The fare served to the grub is a sort of vol-au-vent. The sausage-meat consists of a mince of all that the two scalpels of the shield and the toothed knives of the fore-legs have been able to cut away from the carcass: hair and down, crushed ossicles, strips of flesh and skin. Now hard as brick, the thickening of that mince was originally a jelly of fine clay soaked in the juice of corruption. Lastly, the puff-paste crust of our vol-au-vent is here represented by a covering of the same clay, less rich in extract of meat than the other. The pastry-cook gives his pie an elegant shape; he decorates it with rosettes, with twists, with scrolls. Phanæus Milo is no stranger to these culinary æsthetics. He turns the crust of his vol-au-vent into a handsome gourd, ornamented with a finger-print guilloche. The outer covering, a disagreeable crust, insufficiently steeped in savoury juices, is not, we can easily guess, intended for consumption. It is possible that, somewhat later, when the stomach becomes robust and is not repelled by coarse fare, the grub scrapes a little from the wall of its pie; but, taken as a whole, until the adult insect emerges, the calabash remains intact, having acted as a safeguard of the freshness of the mince-meat at first and as a protecting box for the recluse from start to finish. Above the cold pasty, right at the base of the neck of the gourd, is contrived a round cell with a clay wall continuing the general wall. A fairly thick floor, made of the same material, separates it from the store-room. It is the hatching-chamber. Here is laid the egg, which I find in its place, but dried up; here is hatched the worm, which, to reach the nourishing ball, must previously open a trap-door through the partition separating the two storeys. The worm is born in a little box surmounting the nourishing pile, but not communicating with it. The budding grub must, therefore, at the opportune moment, itself pierce the covering of the pot of preserves. As a matter of fact, later, when the worm is on the sausage-meat, we find the floor perforated with a hole just large enough for it to pass through. Wrapped all round in a thick casing of pottery, the meat keeps fresh as long as is required by the duration of the hatching-process, a detail which I have not ascertained; in its cell, which is also of clay, the egg lies safe. Capital: so far, all is well. Phanæus Milo is thoroughly acquainted with the mysteries of fortification and the danger of victuals evaporating too soon. There remain the breathing requirements of the germ.