In conclusion, one more detail concerning this hatching-chamber. At the extreme end of the neck of the pear, one point is always pretty clearly distinguished: it bristles with stringy fibres, while the rest of the neck is carefully polished. This is the plug with which the mother has closed the narrow opening after carefully depositing the egg; and this plug, as its hairy structure shows, has not been subjected to the pressure exerted over all the rest of the mass, working into it any projecting bits, however small, till not the slightest sign of roughness remains. Why does the extreme end of the pear receive this special treatment, a most curious exception, when nothing else has eluded the heavy blows of the insect’s legs? The reason is that the hind-end of the egg rests against this plug, which, were it pressed down and driven in, would transmit the pressure to the germ and imperil its safety. So the mother, aware of the risk, stops the hole without ramming down the stopper: the air in the hatching-chamber is thus more easily renewed; and the egg escapes the dangerous activity of the powerful rammer. CHAPTER VI THE SACRED BEETLE: THE LARVA Under the thin ceiling of the burrow, the Sacred Beetle’s egg undergoes the varying influences of the sun, the supreme incubator. Consequently there is not, nor can there be, any fixed date for the quickening of the germ. In very hot, sunny weather, I have obtained a grub five or six days after the egg was laid; with a more moderate temperature, I have had to wait until the twelfth day. June and July are the hatching-months. As soon as the new-born grub has flung aside its swaddling clothes, it forthwith bites into the walls of its chamber. If starts eating its house, not anyhow, but with unerring wisdom. If it nibbled at the thin side of its cell—and there is nothing to dissuade it, for here as elsewhere the materials are of excellent quality—if its mandibles scraped the extreme end of the nipple, the weakest point, it would make a breach in the protecting wall before it had sufficient putty to repair that breach. This putty is the material which we shall see the larva using later, when accidents of that kind occur from external causes. If it ate into its heap of provisions at random, it would expose itself to serious risks from the outside; at the very least it would be liable to slip out of its cradle and tumble to the ground through the open window. Once it falls out of its cell, there is no hope for the little grub. It will not know how to make its way back to the larder; and, if it does find its heap of provisions again, it will be repelled by the hard rind with its bits of grit and sand. In its wisdom, greater than any possessed by the young of the higher animals, which are always watched over by a mother, the new-born larva, still sleek and shiny with the slime of the egg, thoroughly knows the danger and avoids it by masterly tactics.