THE SACRED BEETLE: THE MODELLING
Too Long; Didn't Read
Here we are on solid ground, in the domain of facts, of things that can be seen and recorded. How does the Sacred Beetle obtain the maternal pear? To begin with, it is certain that this shape is not achieved by the process of transport, for it is not at all what one would get from haphazard rolling in all directions. The belly of the gourd might be made in that way; but the neck, the elliptical nipple hollowed into a hatching-chamber: that delicate work could never result from a series of violent, irregular bumps. A goldsmith does not hammer out a jewel on a blacksmith’s anvil! Together with other sound reasons already adduced, the pear-shaped outline delivers us, I hope, once and for all, from the antiquated belief that the egg has its home inside a roughly-jolted sphere.