At last it is ready. The baker’s man divides his lump into smaller lumps, each of which will become a loaf. The Copris does the same thing. By means of a circular cut made with the sharp edge of her forehead and the saw of her fore-legs, she detaches from the mass a piece of the prescribed size. With this stroke there is no hesitation, no after-touches adding a bit here and taking off a bit there. Straight away and with one sharp, decisive cut, she obtains the proper-sized lump. It now becomes a question of shaping it. Clasping it as best she can in her short arms, so little adapted, one would think, to work of this kind, the Copris rounds her lump of dough by means of pressure and of pressure only. Gravely she moves about on the still shapeless pill, climbs up, climbs down, turns to right and left, above and below; here she methodically applies a little more pressure, there a little less, touching and retouching with unvarying patience, and finally, after twenty-four hours of it, the piece that was all corners has become a perfect sphere, the size of a plum. There, in her crowded studio, with scarcely room to move, the podgy artist has completed her work without once shaking it on its base; by dint of time and patience she has obtained the geometrical sphere which her clumsy tools and her confined space seemed bound to deny her. For a long time the insect continues to touch up its globe, polishing it affectionately, passing its foot gently to and fro until the least protuberance has disappeared. These meticulous finishing touches seem endless. Towards the end of the second day, however, the sphere is pronounced satisfactory. The mother climbs to the dome of her edifice and there, still by simple pressure, hollows out a shallow crater. In this basin the egg is laid. Then, with extreme caution, with a delicacy that is most surprising with such rough tools, the lips of the crater are brought together so as to form a vaulted roof over the egg. The mother turns slowly, does a little raking, draws the stuff upwards and finishes the closing-process. This is the most ticklish work of all. A little too much pressure, a miscalculated thrust might easily jeopardize the life of the germ under its thin ceiling. Every now and then the mother suspends operations. Motionless, with lowered forehead, she seems to be sounding the cavity beneath, to be listening to what is happening inside. All’s well, it seems; and once again she resumes her patient toil: the careful, delicate scraping of the sides towards the summit, which begins to taper a little and lengthen out. In this way an ovoid with the small end uppermost takes the place of the original sphere. Under the more or less projecting nipple is the hatching-chamber with the egg. Twenty-four hours more are spent in this minute work. Total: four times round the clock and sometimes longer to construct the sphere, scoop out a basin, lay the egg and shut it in by transforming the sphere into an ovoid.