To the Egyptian author, then, the Scarab’s larva was unknown. And, if by chance he had had before his eyes the insect’s shell inhabited by a fat, pot-bellied grub, he would never have suspected in the foul and ugly animal the sober beauty of the future Scarab. According to the ideas of the time, ideas that were long maintained, the sacred insect had neither father nor mother: an error excusable among the untutored ancients, for here the two sexes are outwardly indistinguishable. It was born of the ordure that formed its ball; and its birth dated from the appearance of the nymph, that amber jewel displaying, in a perfectly recognizable shape, the features of the adult insect. In the eyes of antiquity the life of the Sacred Beetle began at the moment when he could be recognized, not before; for otherwise we should have that as yet unsuspected connecting-link, the grub. The twenty-eight days, therefore, during which, as Horapollo tells us, the offspring of the insect quickens, represent the duration of the nymphal phase. This duration has been the object of special attention in my studies. It varies but never to any great extent. From my notes I find thirty-three days to be the longest period and twenty-one the shortest. The average, supplied by some twenty observations, is twenty-eight days. This very number twenty-eight, this number of days contained in four weeks, actually appears oftener than the others. Horapollo spoke truly: the real insect takes life in the space of a lunar month. The four weeks passed, behold the Sacred Beetle in his final shape: the shape, yes, but not the colouring, which is very strange when the nymph casts its skin. The head, legs and thorax are dark-red, except the denticulations of the forehead and fore-arms, which are smoky-brown. The abdomen is an opaque white; the wing-cases are semitransparent white, very faintly tinged with yellow. This imposing raiment, blending the scarlet of the cardinal’s cassock with the white of the celebrant’s alb, a raiment that harmonizes with the insect’s hieratic character, is but temporary and turns darker by degrees, to make way for a uniform of ebon black. About a month is needed for the horny armour to acquire a firm consistency and a definite hue. At last the Beetle is fully matured. Awakening within him is the delicious restlessness born of coming freedom. He, hitherto a son of the darkness, foresees the gladness of the light. Great is his longing to burst the shell so that he may emerge from his underground prison and come into the sun; but the difficulty of liberating himself is no small one. Will he or will he not escape from the natal cradle, which has now become a hateful dungeon? It depends.