Among the Onthophagi the egg grows considerably larger after it is laid; it almost doubles its linear dimensions, thus increasing the bulk eightfold. This growth is general among the Dung-beetles. If you note the size of an egg recently laid by any species and measure it again when the grub is about to be born, you will be quite surprised at the singular progress which it has made. The Sacred Beetle’s egg, for instance, which at first is lodged pretty spaciously in its hatching-chamber, swells until it nearly fills the cavity. The first idea that occurs to the mind is a very simple and tempting one, namely, that the egg feeds. Surrounded by strongly-flavoured effluvia, it becomes impregnated with emanations which distend its flexible tunic; it grows by a sort of alimentary respiration, just as a seed swells in fertile soil. That is how I pictured things at the beginning, when the delicate problem presented itself for the first time. But is this really what happens? Ah, if it were enough, when we were in need of food, to stand outside a cook-shop and inhale the smell of the good things that were being prepared inside, what a different world it would seem, to many of us! It would be too lovely! The Onthophagus, the Copris and the other Beetles with cream-washed hatching-chambers are a delusion and a snare to us, with their eggs which are so ready to swell. The Minotaurus tells me so, somewhat late in the day; she compels me to reconsider my earlier interpretations entirely. Her egg is not enclosed in a hollow inside the victuals whose emanations might explain its growth; it is outside the sausage, a good way underneath, surrounded by sand on every side; and nevertheless it increases in size just as well as those lodged in a succulent cabin. Moreover, the new-born grub surprises me by its chubbiness; it is seven or eight times as big as the egg whence it comes; the contents vastly exceed the capacity of the container. Besides, before touching the food from which it is separated by a ceiling of sand, the grub for a certain time continues its strange growing, as though new materials were being added to those which came out of the egg. Here, in the dry sand, it is impossible to talk of effluvia capable of providing the wherewithal for the grub to wax big and fat. Then to what do both the egg and the new-born grub owe their growth? The Languedocian Scorpion [63] gives us an excellent clue. When passing from a sort of larval stage to the final form, which is the same as that of the adult, we have seen him suddenly double his length and consequently increase eightfold in bulk before taking the least scrap of nourishment. A highly complex process of co-ordination and adjustment takes place in the interior of the organism; and the dimensions increase without the addition of new material.