The Psyche has already provided an example of that singular genesis which exempts the mother from the process of egg-laying, the family being hatched out on the spot occupied by the eggs. Let us recall the shapeless moth, whose appearance is even more miserable than that of the caterpillar. She withdraws herself into the husk of her chrysalid, and there she wastes away, swollen with eggs which will be hatched on the spot. The mother Psyche becomes a lifeless bag whence emerges her living family. This is likewise the case of the Kermes. I witness the process of birth. The new-born insects are struggling to escape from their envelopes. Many of them succeed in doing so by leaving the delicate husk of the egg where it is fastened, still included in the radiating pattern. Others, no less numerous, drag their sheath from its place and for a long time trail it after them, hanging to their hinder parts. It adheres so firmly that the tiny creature is able to cross the threshold of the shell with its moulted husk, completing its liberation in the open air. Thus it is that we find on the natal twig, at some distance from the maternal pill, numbers of white discarded husks, which, if one had not closely followed the progress of events, would give one reason to believe that the eggs were hatched outside the Kermes. These filmy envelopes are deceptive; for the whole family was hatched inside the coffer. Having collected the living dust with which it is now filled, let us glance at the ebony box itself. The cavity is divided into two storeys by a transverse partition, a fine-spun relic of the dessicated animal. The individual substance of the Kermes was so little that it is now represented by a delicate film. The rest of the mass enclosed by the shell appertains to the ovaries. The upper storey is therefore occupied by the newly born no less than the lower. It is easy to emerge from this latter compartment when the time of the exodus has arrived; at its base is an ever-open door, a fissure shaped like a button-hole. But how is it possible to escape from the upper storey, separated from the other as it is by a partition? The newly-hatched young are so feeble, so tiny, that they would never be able to break through the membrane. Let us look more closely. The partition is pierced in the centre by a round manhole! The inhabitants of the lower storey can make immediate use of the door of their dwelling-house, the button-hole exit; those of the upper storey can reach it by means of the hole in the floor. Magnificent foresight on the part of the mechanism of the dessication! The mother Kermes, of whom no more is left than an unsubstantial ceiling, contrives in her substance a trap-door without which half her family would die imprisoned.