The elephant-beetles are difficult to please and take infinite pains when the first mouthful of the grub is in question.

To place the egg in a position where the new-born grub will find light and juicy and easily digested nutriment is not enough for those far-seeing mothers; their cares look beyond this point.

An intermediary period is desirable, which will lead the little larva from the delicacies of its first hours to the diet of hard acorn.
This intermediary period is passed in the gallery, the work of the maternal beak.

There it finds the crumbs, the shavings bitten off by the chisels of the rostrum.

Moreover, the walls of the tunnel, which are softened by mortification, are better suited than the rest of the acorn to the tender mandibles of the larva.
Before setting to work on the cotyledons the grub does, in fact, commence upon the contents and walls of this tiny passage.