It might be said: "The cuckoo lays her egg on the grass, no matter where; she lifts it in her beak and places it in the nearest appropriate nest." Might not the Balaninus follow an analogous method?
Does she employ the rostrum to place the egg in its position at the base of the acorn?
I cannot see that the insect has any other implement capable of reaching this remote hiding-place.
Nevertheless, we must hastily reject such an absurd explanation as a last, desperate resort.

The elephant-beetle certainly does not lay its egg in the open and seize it in its beak.

If it did so the delicate ovum would certainly be destroyed, crushed in the attempt to thrust it down a narrow passage half choked with debris.
This is very perplexing.

My embarrassment will be shared by all readers who are acquainted with the structure of the elephant-beetle.

The grasshopper has a sabre, an oviscapt which plunges into the earth and sows the eggs at the desired depth; the Leuscopis has a probe which finds its way through the masonry of the mason-bee and lays the egg in the cocoon of the great somnolent larva; but the Balaninus has none of these swords, daggers, or pikes; she has nothing but the tip of her abdomen.