Things happen otherwise in the Copris’ egg, as in the other Dung-beetles’. We still, no doubt, find the vivifying assistance of the air; but there is also an accession of new materials which come to add to the reserves furnished by the ovary. Endosmosis causes the exhalations of the chamber to penetrate through a very delicate membrane, so much so that the egg is fed, swells and enlarges to thrice its original volume. If we have failed to follow this progressive growth attentively, we are quite surprised at the extraordinary final size, which is out of all proportion to that of the mother. This nourishment lasts a fairly long time, for the hatching takes from fifteen to twenty days. Thanks to the added substance with which the egg has been enriched, the larva is already pretty big when born. We have not here the weakly grub, the animated speck which many insects show us, but a pretty little creature, at once sturdy and tender, which, happy at being alive, arches its back and frisks and rolls about in its nest. It is satin-white, with a touch of straw-colour on its skull-cap. I find the terminal trowel plainly marked: I mean that slanting plane with the scalloped edge whereof the Sacred Beetle has already shown us the use when some breach in the cell needs repairing. The implement tells us the future trade. You also, my attractive little grub, will become a knapsacked excreter, a fervent plasterer manipulating the stucco supplied by the intestines. But first I will subject you to an experiment. Now what are your first mouthfuls? As a rule I see the walls of your nest shining with a greenish, semifluid wash, a sort of thinly-spread jam. Is this a special dish intended for your delicate baby stomach? Is it a childish dainty disgorged by the mother? I used to think so when I first began to study the Sacred Beetle. To-day, after seeing a similar wash in the cells of the various Dung-beetles, including the uncouth Geotrupes, [39] I wonder whether it is not rather the result of a mere exudation accumulating on the walls in a sort of dew, the fluid quintessence filtering through the porous matter. The Copris mother lent herself to observation better than any of the others. I have many times surprised her at the moment when, hoisted on her round pill, she excavates the top in the form of a cup; and I have never seen anything that at all suggests a disgorgement. The cavity of the bowl, which I lose no time in examining, is just like the rest. Perhaps I have missed the favourable moment. In any case, I can take only a brief glance at the mother’s occupations: all work ceases as soon as I raise the cardboard sheath to give light. Under these conditions the secret might escape me indefinitely. Let us look at the difficulty from another angle and enquire whether some special milk-food, elaborated in the mother’s stomach, is necessary for the infant larva.