The insect employs two methods to ward off the danger of desiccation. In the first place, it compresses the outer layer with all the strength of its stout, flat fore-arms, turning it into a protective rind more homogeneous and more compact than the central mass. If I break one of these dried-up provision-boxes, the rind usually comes clean away, leaving the centre part bare. The whole suggests the shell and kernel of a nut. The pressure exercised by the mother when manipulating her pear has affected the surface layer to a depth of a few millimetres, and this has produced the rind; the influence of the pressure is not felt lower down, and the result is the big central kernel. In the hot summer months, the housewife puts her bread into a closed pan, to keep it fresh. This is what the insect does, in its fashion: by dint of compression, it covers the family bread with a pan. The Sacred Beetle does not stop there: she becomes a geometrician capable of solving a delicate problem of minimum values. Other conditions being equal, evaporation obviously takes place in proportion to the extent of the evaporating surface. The alimentary mass must therefore be given the smallest possible surface, in order to reduce the waste of moisture as much as possible; at the same time, this minimum surface must incorporate the maximum aggregate of nutritive materials, so that the grub may find sufficient nourishment. Now what is the form that encloses the greatest bulk within the smallest superficial area? Geometry answers, the sphere. The Scarab, therefore, shapes the larva’s ration into a sphere (we will leave the neck of the pear out of the question for the moment); and this round form is not the result of blind mechanical conditions, imposing an inevitable shape upon the worker; it is not the violent effect of the rolling along the ground. We have already seen that, for the purpose of easier and swifter transit, the insect kneads into a perfect sphere the materials which it intends to consume at a distance, without moving that sphere from the spot on which it rests; in short, we have realized that the round form precedes the rolling. In the same way, it will be seen presently that the pear destined for the grub is fashioned in the burrow. It undergoes no rolling-process, it is not even moved. The Sacred Beetle gives it the requisite outline exactly as a modelling artist might do, shaping his clay under the pressure of his thumb.