I act accordingly with a third pill, which is very neatly repaired in a short time. Not a trace remains of the ravages caused by my penknife. I continue in the same way with a fourth, a fifth and so on, at intervals long enough to give the mother a rest. I stop when the receptacle is full, looking like a pot of plums. The contents amount to twelve pieces, of which ten have come from the outside, all ten violated by my penknife and all restored to good condition by the foster-mother. There are some interesting sidelights to this curious experiment, which I could have continued if the capacity of the jar had permitted. The Copris’ zeal, which was not lessened after the restoring of so many ruins, and her diligence, which was the same at the end as in the beginning, tell me that I had not exhausted the maternal solicitude. Let us leave it at that; it is amply sufficient. Observe first the arrangement of the pills. Three are enough to occupy the floor-space of the enclosure. The others are therefore gradually superposed in layers, making in the end a four-story structure. The whole forms an irregular pile, an absolute labyrinth with very narrow, winding lanes, through which the insect glides with some difficulty. When her household is in order, the mother stays below, under the pile, touching the sand. It is at this moment that a new broken cell is introduced, right at the top of the pile, on the third or fourth floor. Let us put back the screen, wait a few minutes and then go back to the jar. The mother is there, hoisted on the torn pill and doing her utmost to close it. How was she informed on the ground-floor of what was happening in the attic? How did she know that a larva up there was calling for her assistance? The babe in distress screams and the nurse comes running up. The grub says nothing; it makes no sound. Its desperate gesticulations are not accompanied by any noise. And the watcher hears this mute appeal. She notices the silence, she sees the invisible. I am bewildered, every one would be bewildered by the mystery of these perceptions which are so foreign to our nature and which ‘topsy turvy the understanding,’ as Montaigne would say. Let us pass on. I have described elsewhere [40] the brutality with which the Bee, that most gifted of insects, treats the eggs of her fellows. Osmiæ, Chalicodomæ and others perpetrate atrocities at times. In a moment of vengeance or of that inexplicable aberration which occurs after the laying is finished, a sister’s egg, savagely torn from the cell with the pincers of the mandibles, is flung into the dust-bin. The thing is pitilessly crushed, is ripped open, is even eaten. How different from the good-natured Copris!