A more or less enquiring glance is quite surprised to find so small a germ contained in so large a box. What does the tiny egg want with all that room? When carefully examined within, the walls of the chamber suggest another question. They are coated with a fine greenish pap, semifluid and shiny, the appearance of which does not agree with either the external or the internal aspect of the lump from which the insect has extracted its materials. A similar lime-wash is observed in the nest which the Scarab, the Copris, the Sisyphus, the Geotrupes and other makers of stercoraceous preserves contrive in the very heart of the provisions, to receive the egg; but nowhere have I seen it so plentiful, in proportion, as in the hatching-chamber of the Onthophagus. Long puzzled by this brothy wash, of which the Sacred Beetle provided me with the first instance, I at one time took the thing for a layer of moisture oozing from the bulk of the victuals and collecting on the surface of the enclosure without other effort than capillary action. That was the interpretation of this varnish which I accepted in various earlier passages. I was wrong. The truth is something much more remarkable. To-day, better informed by the Onthophagus, I reopen the question: is this lime-wash, this semifluid cream, the result of a natural oozing, or is it the product of maternal foresight? A simple and conclusive experiment will give us the answer. I ought to have made it at the outset. I did not think of it, because the simple is usually the last thing that we call to our aid. Here is the experiment. I pack a little glass jar, the size of a Hen’s egg, with Sheep-dung as employed by the Onthophagus. With a glass rod, which leaves a perfectly smooth impression, I make a cylindrical cavity in the heap about an inch deep. After withdrawing the rod, I cover the orifice with a slab of the same material; and I protect the whole against desiccation by means of an hermetically closed lid. It is the Sacred Beetle’s pear, with its hatching-chamber, on a larger scale; it is the Onthophagus’ thimble, enormously exaggerated. I may say that, after the withdrawal of the glass rod, the surface of the cavity is a dull, greenish black, with not a trace of extravasated shiny moisture. If an oozing by capillary action really takes place, the semifluid varnish will appear; if nothing of the kind should occur, the surface will remain dull. I wait a couple of days to allow the capillary sweating to take effect, if such a process there be. Then I examine the cavity. There is no shiny wash on the walls; they look as dull and dry as at the beginning. Three days later, I make a fresh inspection. Nothing has changed: the pit made by the glass rod shows no sign of exudation; it is even a little drier. So capillary action and its extravasations have nothing to do with the matter.