his is the place for the eggs. The laying lasts barely half an hour.
I have seen it last thirty-six hours with Sitares. This quickness of
the Mylabris points to an incomparably less numerous family. The
hiding-place is next closed. The mother sweeps up the rubbish with her
fore-legs, collects it with the rake of her mandibles and pushes it
back into the pit, into which she now descends to stamp upon the
powdery layer and cram it down with her hind-legs, which I see swiftly
working. When this layer is well packed, she starts raking together
fresh material to complete the filling of the hole, which is carefully
trampled stratum by stratum.

I take the mother from her pit while she is engaged in filling it up.
Delicately, with the tip of a camel-hair pencil, I move her a couple
of inches. The Beetle does not return to her batch of eggs, does not
even look for it. She climbs up the wire gauze and proceeds to graze
among her companions on the bindweed or scabious, without troubling
herself further about her eggs, whose hiding-place is only
half-filled. A second mother, whom I move only one inch, is no longer
able to return to her task, or rather does not think of doing so. I
take a third, after shifting her just as slightly, and, while the
forgetful creature is climbing up the trellis-work, bring her back to
the pit. I replace her with her head at the opening. The mother stands
motionless, looking thoroughly perplexed. She sways her head, passes
her front tarsi through her mandibles, then moves away and climbs to
the top of the dome without attempting anything. In each of these
three cases I have to finish filling in the pit myself. What then are
this maternity, which the touch of a brush causes to forget its
duties, and this memory, which is lost at a distance of an inch from
the spot? Compare with these shortcomings of the adult the expert
machinations of the primary larva, which knows where its victuals are
and as its first action introduces itself into the dwelling of the
host that is to feed it. How can time and experience be factors of
instinct? The newborn animalcule amazes us with its foresight; the
adult insect astonishes us with its stupidity.

With both Mylabres, the batch consists of some forty eggs, a very
small number compared with those of the Oil-beetle and the Sitaris.
This limited family was already foreseen, judging by the short space
of time which the egg-layer spends in her underground lodging. The
egg