She is small, I agree; but littleness does not diminish talent in the least, as witness the Titmouse, with his pendulous nest, the Wren and the Canary, who, although among the smallest of our little birds, are incomparable artists. The near kinswomen of the Onthophagus excel in making beautiful ovoids and pear-shaped gourds. She herself, so tiny and so precise, ought to do even better. Well, the table deceives us, the formula lies: the Onthophagus is a very indifferent artist; her nest is a rudimentary piece of work, hardly fit to be acknowledged. I obtain it in profusion from the six species which I have brought up in my jars and flower-pots. The Bull Onthophagus alone provides me with nearly a hundred; and I find no two precisely alike, as pieces should be that come from the same mould and the same workshop. To this lack of exact similarity, we must add inaccuracy of shape, now more now less accentuated. It is easy, however, to recognize among the bulk the pattern upon which the clumsy nest-builder works. It is a sack shaped like a thimble and standing erect, with the spherical thimble-end at the bottom and the circular opening at the top. Sometimes the insect establishes itself in the central region of my apparatus, in the heart of the earthy mass; then, the resistance being the same in every direction, the sack-like shape is pretty accurate. But, generally, the Onthophagus prefers a solid basis to a dusty support and builds on the walls of the jar, especially on the bottom. When the support is vertical, the sack is a longitudinal section of a short cylinder, with the smooth flat surface against the glass and a rugged convexity every elsewhere. If the support be horizontal, as is most frequently the case, the cabin is a sort of undecided oval lozenge, flat at the bottom, bulging and vaulted at the top. To the general inaccuracy of these contorted shapes, regulated by no very definite pattern, we must add the coarseness of the surfaces, all of which, with the exception of the parts touching the glass, are covered with a crust of sand. The manner of procedure explains this uncouth exterior. As laying-time draws nigh, the Onthophagus bores a cylindrical pit and descends underground to a moderate depth. Here, working with her forehead, her chin and her fore-legs, which are toothed like a rake, she forces back and heaps around her the materials which she has moved, so as to obtain as best she may a nest of suitable size.