ost sensible course is to enclose the food in absolutely shut
vessels.

Well, the receptacle is dug in very fine, homogeneous, water-tight
earth, with not a bit of gravel, not an atom of sand in it. Together
with the lid that forms the bottom of its round chamber, in which the
egg is lodged, this cavity becomes an urn whose contents are safe from
drought for a long time, even under a scorching sun. However late the
hatching, the new-born grub, on finding the lid, will have under its
teeth provisions as fresh as though they dated from that very day.

The clay food-pit, with its closely-fitting lid, is an excellent
method, than which our agricultural experts have discovered no better
way of preserving fodder; but it possesses one drawback: to reach the
stack of food, the grub has first to open a passage through the floor
of its chamber. Instead of the pap called for by its weakly stomach,
it begins by finding a brick to chew.

The rude task would be avoided if the egg lay directly on top of the
victuals, inside the case itself. Here our logic is at fault: it
forgets an essential point, which the insect is careful not to
disregard. The germ breathes. Its development requires air; and the
perfectly-closed clay urn does not allow any air to enter. The grub
has to be born outside the pot.

Agreed. But, in the matter of breathing, the egg is no better off for
being shut up, on top of the provisions, in a clay casket quite as
air-tight as the jar itself. Examine the thing more closely, however,
and you will receive a satisfactory reply. The walls of the
hatching-chamber are carefully glazed inside. The mother has taken
meticulous pains to give them a stucco-like finish. The vaulted
ceiling alone is rugged, because the building-tool now works from the
outside and is unable to reach the inner surface of the lid and smooth
it. Moreover, in the centre of this curved and embossed ceiling, a
small opening has been made. This is the air-hole, which allows of
gaseous exchanges between the atmosphere inside the box and that
outside.

If it were entirely free, this opening would be dangerous: some
plunderer might take advantage of it to enter the casket. The mother
foresees the risk. She blocks the breathing-hole with a plug made of
the ravelled vegetable fibres of the Cow-dung, a stopper which is
eminently permeable. It is an exact repetition of that which the
various modellers have shown us at the top of their calabashes and
pea