Of course the rolling ball never contains the egg. The laying takes place not on the public highway but in the privacy of the subsoil. A burrow is dug, two or three inches deep at most. It is spacious in proportion to its contents, proving that the Sacred Beetle’s studio-work is repeated by the Gymnopleurus. I am speaking of that modelling in which the artist must have full liberty of movement. When the egg is laid, the cell remains empty; only the passage is filled up, as witness the little mound outside, the surplus of the unreplaced refuse. A minute’s digging with my pocket-trowel and the humble cabin is laid bare. The mother is often present, occupied in some trifling household duties before quitting the cell for good. In the middle of the room lies her work, the cradle of the germ and the ration of the coming larva. Its shape and size are those of a Sparrow’s egg; and I am here speaking of both Gymnopleuri, whose habits and labours are so much alike that I need not distinguish between them. Unless we found the mother beside it, we should be unable to tell whether the ovoid which we have dug up is the work of the smooth or of the pock-marked insect. At most, a slight advantage in size might point to the former; and even so this characteristic is far from trustworthy. The egg-shape, with its two unequal ends, one large and round, the other more pointed, shaped like an elliptical nipple, or even drawn out into the neck of a pear, confirms the conclusions with which we are already acquainted. An outline of this kind is not obtained by rolling, which is only reconcilable with a sphere. To get it, the mother must knead her lump of stuff. This may be already more or less round, as the result of the work done in the yard whence it came and of the subsequent carting, or it may still be shapeless, if the heap was near enough to allow of immediate storing. In short, once at home, she acts like the Sacred Beetle, and does modelling-work. The material lends itself well to this. Taken from the most plastic stuff supplied by the Sheep, it is shaped as easily as clay. In this way the graceful, firm, polished ovoid is obtained, a work of art like the pear and as exquisite in its soft curve as a bird’s egg. Where, inside it, is the insect’s germ? If we argued rightly when discussing the Sacred Beetle, if really the questions of ventilation and warmth demand that the egg be as near as possible to the surrounding atmosphere, while remaining protected by a rampart, it is evident that the egg must be installed at the small end of the ovoid, behind a thin defensive wall.