An eager freebooter, ready for any task, the Ant is the first to come hastening and begin, particle by particle, to dissect the corpse. Soon the odour of the corpse attracts the Fly, the genitrix of the odious maggot. At the same time, the flattened Silpha, the glistening, slow-trotting Horn-beetle, the Dermestes, powdered with snow upon the abdomen, and the slender Staphylinus, all, whence coming no one knows, hurry hither in squads, with never-wearied zeal, investigating, probing and draining the infection.

What a spectacle, in the spring, beneath a dead Mole! The horror of this laboratory is a beautiful sight for one who is able to observe and to meditate. Let us overcome our disgust; let us turn over the unclean refuse with our foot. What a swarming there is beneath it, what a tumult of busy workers! The Silphae, with wing-cases wide and dark, as though in mourning, fly distraught, hiding in the cracks in the soil; the Saprini, of polished ebony which mirrors the sunlight, jog hastily off, deserting their workshop; the Dermestes, of whom one wears a fawn-coloured tippet, spotted with white, seek to fly away, but, tipsy with their putrid nectar, tumble over and reveal the immaculate whiteness of their bellies, which forms a violent contrast with the gloom of the rest of their attire.

What were they doing there, all these feverish workers? They were making a clearance of death on behalf of life. Transcendent alchemists, they were transforming that horrible putridity into a living and inoffensive product. They were draining the dangerous corpse to the point of rendering it as dry and sonorous as the remains of an old slipper hardened on the refuse-heap by the frosts of winter and the heats of summer. They were working their hardest to render the carrion innocuous.

Others will soon put in their appearance, smaller creatures and more patient, who will take over the relic and exploit it ligament by ligament, bone by bone, hair by hair, until the whole has been resumed by the treasury of life. All honour to these purifiers! Let us put back the Mole and go our way.

Some other victim of the agricultural labours of spring—a Shrew-mouse, Field-mouse, Mole, Frog, Adder, or Lizard—will provide us with the most vigorous and famous of these expurgators of the soil. This is the Burying-beetle, the Necrophorus, so different from the cadaveric mob in dress and habits. In honour of his exalted functions he exhales an odour of musk; he bears a red tuft at the tip of his antennae; his breast is covered with nankeen; and across his wing-cases he wears a double, scalloped scarf of vermilion. An elegant, almost sumptuous costume, very superior to that of the others, but yet lugubrious, as befits your undertaker's man.

He is no anatomical dissector, cutting his subject open, carving its flesh with the scalpel of his mandibles; he is literally a gravedigger, a sexton. While the others—Silphae, Dermestes, Horn-beetles—gorge themselves with the exploited flesh, without, of course, forgetting the interests of the family, he, a frugal eater, hardly touches his booty on his own account. He buries it entire, on the spot, in a cellar where the thing, duly ripened, will form the diet of his larvae. He buries it in order to establish his progeny therein.

This hoarder of dead bodies, with his stiff and almost heavy movements, is astonishingly quick at storing away wreckage. In a shift of a few hours, a comparatively enormous animal—a Mole, for example—disappears, engulfed by the earth. The others leave the dried, emptied carcass to the air, the sport of the winds for months on end; he, treating it as a whole, makes a clean job of things at once. No visible trace of his work remains but a tiny hillock, a burial-mound, a tumulus.

With his expeditious method, the Necrophorus is the first of the little purifiers of the fields. He is also one of the most celebrated of insects in respect of his psychical capacities. This undertaker is endowed, they say, with intellectual faculties approaching to reason, such as are not possessed by the most gifted of the Bees and Wasps, the collectors of honey or game. He is honoured by the two following anecdotes, which I quote from Lacordaire's "Introduction to Entomology," the only general treatise at my disposal:

"Clairville," says the author, "records that he saw a Necrophorus vespillo, who, wishing to bury a dead Mouse and finding the soil on which the body lay too hard, proceeded to dig a hole at some distance in soil more easily displaced. This operation completed, he attempted to bury the Mouse in this cavity, but, not succeeding, he flew away, returning a few moments later accompanied by four of his fellows, who assisted him to move the Mouse and bury it."

In such actions, Lacordaire adds, we cannot refuse to admit the intervention of reason.

"The following case," he continues, "recorded by Gledditsch, has also every indication of the intervention of reason. One of his friends, wishing to desiccate a Frog, placed it on the top of a stick thrust into the ground, in order to make sure that the Necrophori should not come and carry it off. But this precaution was of no effect; the insects, being unable to reach the Frog, dug under the stick and, having caused it to fall, buried it as well as the body." ("Suites a Buffon. Introduction a l'entomologie" volume 2 pages 460-61.—Author's Note.)

To grant, in the intellect of the insect, a lucid understanding of the relations between cause and effect, between the end and the means, is an affirmation of serious import. I know of scarcely any better adapted to the philosophical brutalities of my time. But are these two little stories really true? Do they involve the consequences deduced from them? Are not those who accept them as reliable testimony a little over-simple?

To be sure, simplicity is needed in entomology. Without a good dose of this quality, a mental defect in the eyes of practical folk, who would busy himself with the lesser creatures? Yes, let us be simple, without being childishly credulous. Before making insects reason, let us reason a little ourselves; let us, above all, consult the experimental test. A fact gathered at hazard, without criticism, cannot establish a law.

I do not propose, O valiant grave-diggers, to belittle your merits; such is far from being my intention. I have that in my notes, on the other hand, which will do you more honour than the case of the gibbet and the Frog; I have gleaned, for your benefit, examples of prowess which will shed a new lustre upon your reputation.

No, my intention is not to lessen your renown. However, it is not the business of impartial history to maintain a given thesis; it follows whither the facts lead it. I wish simply to question you upon the power of logic attributed to you. Do you or do you not enjoy gleams of reason? Have you within you the humble germ of human thought? That is the problem before us.

To solve it we will not rely upon the accidents which good fortune may now and again procure for us. We must employ the breeding-cage, which will permit of assiduous visits, continued inquiry and a variety of artifices. But how populate the cage? The land of the olive-tree is not rich in Necrophori. To my knowledge it possesses only a single species, N. vestigator (Hersch.); and even this rival of the grave-diggers of the north is pretty scarce. The discovery of three or four in the course of the spring was as much as my searches yielded in the old days. This time, if I do not resort to the ruses of the trapper, I shall obtain them in no greater numbers; whereas I stand in need of at least a dozen.

These ruses are very simple. To go in search of the layer-out of bodies, who exists only here and there in the country-side, would be almost always waste of time; the favourable month, April, would elapse before my cage was suitably populated. To run after him is to trust too much to accident; so we will make him come to us by scattering in the orchard an abundant collection of dead Moles. To this carrion, ripened by the sun, the insect will not fail to hasten from the various points of the horizon, so accomplished is he in the detection of such a delicacy.

I make an arrangement with a gardener in the neighbourhood, who, two or three times a week, supplements the penury of my acre and a half of stony ground, providing me with vegetables raised in a better soil. I explain to him my urgent need of Moles, an indefinite number of moles. Battling daily with trap and spade against the importunate excavator who uproots his crops, he is in a better position than any one else to procure for me that which I regard for the moment as more precious than his bunches of asparagus or his white-heart cabbages.

The worthy man at first laughs at my request, being greatly surprised by the importance which I attribute to the abhorrent creature, the Darboun; but at last he consents, not without a suspicion at the back of his mind that I am going to make myself a wonderful flannel-lined waist-coat with the soft, velvety skins of the Moles, something good for pains in the back. Very well. We settle the matter. The essential thing is that the Darbouns shall reach me.

They reach me punctually, by twos, by threes, by fours, packed in a few cabbage-leaves, at the bottom of the gardener's basket. The worthy man who lent himself with such good grace to my strange requirements will never guess how much comparative psychology will owe him! In a few days I was the possessor of thirty Moles, which were scattered here and there, as they reached me, in bare portions of the orchard, amid the rosemary-bushes, the arbutus-trees, and the lavender-beds.

Now it only remained to wait and to examine, several times a day, the under-side of my little corpses, a disgusting task which any one would avoid who had not the sacred fire in his veins. Only little Paul, of all the household, lent me the aid of his nimble hand to seize the fugitives. I have already stated that the entomologist has need of simplicity of mind. In this important business of the Necrophori, my assistants were a child and an illiterate.

Little Paul's visits alternating with mine, we had not long to wait. The four winds of heaven bore forth in all directions the odour of the carrion; and the undertakers hurried up, so that the experiments, begun with four subjects, were continued with fourteen, a number not attained during the whole of my previous searches, which were unpremeditated and in which no bait was used as decoy. My trapper's ruse was completely successful.

Before I report the results obtained in the cage, let us for a moment stop to consider the normal conditions of the labours that fall to the lot of the Necrophori. The Beetle does not select his head of game, choosing one in proportion to his strength, as do the predatory Wasps; he accepts it as hazard presents it to him. Among his finds there are little creatures, such as the Shrew-mouse; animals of medium size, such as the Field-mouse; and enormous beasts, such as the Mole, the Sewer-rat and the Snake, any of which exceeds the powers of excavation of a single grave-digger. In the majority of cases transportation is impossible, so disproportioned is the burden to the motive-power. A slight displacement, caused by the effort of the insects' backs, is all that can possibly be effected.

Ammophilus and Cerceris, Sphex and Pompilus excavate their burrows wherever they please; they carry their prey thither on the wing, or, if too heavy, drag it afoot. The Necrophorus knows no such facilities in his task. Incapable of carrying the monstrous corpse, no matter where encountered, he is forced to dig the grave where the body lies.

This obligatory place of sepulture may be in stony soil; it may occupy this or that bare spot, or some other where the grass, especially the couch-grass, plunges into the ground its inextricable network of little cords. There is a great probability, too, that a bristle of stunted brambles may support the body at some inches from the soil. Slung by the labourers' spade, which has just broken his back, the Mole falls here, there, anywhere, at random; and where the body falls, no matter what the obstacles—provided they be not insurmountable—there the undertaker must utilize it.

The difficulties of inhumation are capable of such variety as causes us already to foresee that the Necrophorus cannot employ fixed methods in the accomplishment of his labours. Exposed to fortuitous hazards, he must be able to modify his tactics within the limits of his modest perceptions. To saw, to break, to disentangle, to lift, to shake, to displace: these are so many methods of procedure which are indispensable to the grave-digger in a predicament. Deprived of these resources, reduced to uniformity of method, the insect would be incapable of pursuing the calling which has fallen to its lot.

We see at once how imprudent it would be to draw conclusions from an isolated case in which rational coordination or premeditated intention might appear to intervene. Every instinctive action no doubt has its motive; but does the animal in the first place judge whether the action is opportune? Let us begin by a careful consideration of the creature's labours; let us support each piece of evidence by others; and then we shall be able to answer the question.

First of all, a word as to diet. A general scavenger, the Burying-beetle refuses nothing in the way of cadaveric putridity. All is good to his senses, feathered game or furry, provided that the burden do not exceed his strength. He exploits the batrachian or the reptile with no less animation, he accepts without hesitation extraordinary finds, probably unknown to his race, as witness a certain Gold-fish, a red Chinese Carp, whose body, placed in one of my cages, was instantly considered an excellent tit-bit and buried according to the rules. Nor is butcher's meat despised. A mutton-cutlet, a strip of beefsteak, in the right stage of maturity, disappeared beneath the soil, receiving the same attention as those which were lavished on the Mole or the Mouse. In short, the Necrophorus has no exclusive preferences; anything putrid he conveys underground.

The maintenance of his industry, therefore, presents no sort of difficulty. If one kind of game be lacking, some other—the first to hand—will very well replace it. Neither is there much trouble in establishing the site of his industry. A capacious dish-cover of wire gauze is sufficient, resting on an earthen pan filled to the brim with fresh, heaped sand. To obviate criminal attempts on the part of the Cats, whom the game would not fail to tempt, the cage is installed in a closed room with glazed windows, which in winter is the refuge of the plants and in summer an entomological laboratory.

Now to work. The Mole lies in the centre of the enclosure. The soil, easily shifted and homogeneous, realizes the best conditions for comfortable work. Four Necrophori, three males and a female, are there with the body. They remain invisible, hidden beneath the carcass, which from time to time seems to return to life, shaken from end to end by the backs of the workers. An observer not in the secret would be somewhat astonished to see the dead creature move. From time to time, one of the sextons, almost always a male, emerges and goes the rounds of the animal, which he explores, probing its velvet coat. He hurriedly returns, appears again, once more investigates and creeps back under the corpse.

The tremors become more pronounced; the carcass oscillates, while a cushion of sand, pushed outward from below, grows up all about it. The Mole, by reason of his own weight and the efforts of the grave-diggers, who are labouring at their task beneath him, gradually sinks, for lack of support, into the undermined soil.

Presently the sand which has been pushed outward quivers under the thrust of the invisible miners, slips into the pit and covers the interred Mole. It is a clandestine burial. The body seems to disappear of itself, as though engulfed by a fluid medium. For a long time yet, until the depth is regarded as sufficient, the body will continue to descend.

It is, when all is taken into account, a very simple operation. As the diggers, underneath the corpse, deepen the cavity into which it sinks, tugged and shaken by the sextons, the grave, without their intervention, fills of itself by the mere downfall of the shaken soil. Useful shovels at the tips of their claws, powerful backs, capable of creating a little earthquake: the diggers need nothing more for the practice of their profession. Let us add—for this is an essential point—the art of continually jerking and shaking the body, so as to pack it into a lesser volume and cause it to pass when passage is obstructed. We shall presently see that this art plays a part of the greatest importance in the industry of the Necrophori.

Although he has disappeared, the Mole is still far from having reached his destination. Let us leave the undertakers to complete their task. What they are now doing below ground is a continuation of what they did on the surface and would teach us nothing new. We will wait for two or three days.

The moment has come. Let us inform ourselves of what is happening down there. Let us visit the retting-vat. I shall invite no one to be present at the exhumation. Of those about me, only little Paul has the courage to assist me.

The Mole is a Mole no longer, but a greenish horror, putrid, hairless, shrunk into a round, greasy mass. The thing must have undergone careful manipulation to be thus condensed into a small volume, like a fowl in the hands of the cook, and, above all, to be so completely deprived of its fur. Is this culinary procedure undertaken in respect of the larvae, which might be incommoded by the fur? Or is it just a casual result, a mere loss of hair due to putridity? I am not certain. But it is always the case that these exhumations, from first to last, have revealed the furry game furless and the feathered game featherless, except for the tail-feathers and the pinion-feathers of the wings. Reptiles and fish, on the other hand, retain their scales.

Let us return to the unrecognizable thing which was once a Mole. The tit-bit lies in a spacious crypt, with firm walls, a regular workshop, worthy of being the bake-house of a Copris-beetle. Except for the fur, which is lying in scattered flocks, it is intact. The grave-diggers have not eaten into it; it is the patrimony of the sons, not the provision of the parents, who, in order to sustain themselves, levy at most a few mouthfuls of the ooze of putrid humours.

Beside the dish which they are kneading and protecting are two Necrophori; a couple, no more. Four collaborated in the burial. What has become of the other two, both males? I find them hidden in the soil, at a distance, almost at the surface.

This observation is not an isolated one. Whenever I am present at a burial undertaken by a squad in which the males, zealous one and all, predominate, I find presently, when the burial is completed, only one couple in the mortuary cellar. Having lent their assistance, the rest have discreetly retired.

These grave-diggers, in truth, are remarkable fathers. They have nothing of the happy-go-lucky paternal carelessness that is the general rule among insects, which plague and pester the mother for a moment with their attentions and thereupon leave her to care for the offspring! But those who in the other races are unemployed in this case labour valiantly, now in the interest of their own family, now for the sake of another's, without distinction. If a couple is in difficulties, helpers arrive, attracted by the odour of carrion; anxious to serve a lady, they creep under the body, work at it with back and claw, bury it and then go their ways, leaving the householders to their happiness.

For some time longer these latter manipulate the morsel in concert, stripping it of fur or feather, trussing it and allowing it to simmer to the taste of the larvae. When all is in order, the couple go forth, dissolving their partnership, and each, following his fancy, recommences elsewhere, even if only as a mere auxiliary.

Twice and no oftener hitherto have I found the father preoccupied by the future of his sons and labouring in order to leave them rich: it happens with certain Dung-beetles and with the Necrophori, who bury dead bodies. Scavengers and undertakers both have exemplary morals. Who would look for virtue in such a quarter?

What follows—the larval existence and the metamorphosis—is a secondary detail and, for that matter, familiar. It is a dry subject and I shall deal with it briefly. About the end of May, I exhume a Brown Rat, buried by the grave-diggers a fortnight earlier. Transformed into a black, sticky jelly, the horrible dish provides me with fifteen larvae, already, for the most part, of the normal size. A few adults, connections, assuredly, of the brood, are also stirring amid the infected mass. The period of hatching is over now; and food is plentiful. Having nothing else to do, the foster-parents have sat down to the feast with the nurselings.

The undertakers are quick at rearing a family. It is at most a fortnight since the Rat was laid in the earth; and here already is a vigorous population on the verge of the metamorphosis. Such precocity amazes me. It would seem as though the liquefaction of carrion, deadly to any other stomach, is in this case a food productive of especial energy, which stimulates the organism and accelerates its growth, so that the victuals may be consumed before its approaching conversion into mould. Living chemistry makes haste to outstrip the ultimate reactions of mineral chemistry.

White, naked, blind, possessing the habitual attributes of life in darkness, the larva, with its lanceolate outline, is slightly reminiscent of the grub of the Ground-beetle. The mandibles are black and powerful, making excellent scissors for dissection. The limbs are short, but capable of a quick, toddling gait. The segments of the abdomen are armoured on the upper surface with a narrow reddish plate, armed with four tiny spikes, whose office apparently is to furnish points of support when the larva quits the natal dwelling and dives into the soil, there to undergo the transformation. The thoracic segments are provided with wider plates, but unarmed.

The adults discovered in the company of their larval family, in this putridity that was a Rat, are all abominably verminous. So shiny and neat in their attire, when at work under the first Moles of April, the Necrophori, when June approaches, become odious to look upon. A layer of parasites envelops them; insinuating itself into the joints, it forms an almost continuous surface. The insect presents a misshapen appearance under this overcoat of vermin, which my hair-pencil can hardly brush aside. Driven off the belly, the horde make the tour of the sufferer and encamp on his back, refusing to relinquish their hold.

I recognize among them the Beetle's Gamasis, the Tick who so often soils the ventral amethyst of our Geotrupes. No; the prizes of life do not fall to the share of the useful. Necrophori and Geotrupes devote themselves to works of general salubrity; and these two corporations, so interesting in the accomplishment of their hygienic functions, so remarkable for their domestic morality, are given over to the vermin of poverty. Alas, of this discrepancy between the services rendered and the harshness of life there are many other examples outside the world of scavengers and undertakers!

The Burying-beetles display an exemplary domestic morality, but it does not persist until the end. During the first fortnight of June, the family being sufficiently provided for, the sextons strike work and my cages are deserted, so far as the surface is concerned, in spite of new arrivals of Mice and Sparrows. From time to time some grave-digger leaves the subsoil and comes crawling languidly in the fresh air.

Another rather curious fact now attracts my attention. All, as soon as they emerge from underground, are cripples, whose limbs have been amputated at the joints, some higher up, some lower down. I see one mutilated Beetle who has only one leg left entire. With this odd limb and the stumps of the others lamentably tattered, scaly with vermin, he rows himself, as it were, over the dusty surface. A comrade emerges, one better off for legs, who finishes the cripple and cleans out his abdomen. So my thirteen remaining Necrophori end their days, half-devoured by their companions, or at least shorn of several limbs. The pacific relations of the outset are succeeded by cannibalism.

History tells us that certain peoples, the Massagetae and others, used to kill their aged folk in order to spare them the miseries of senility. The fatal blow on the hoary skull was in their eyes an act of filial piety. The Necrophori have their share of these ancient barbarities. Full of days and henceforth useless, dragging out a weary existence, they mutually exterminate one another. Why prolong the agony of the impotent and the imbecile?

The Massagetae might invoke, as an excuse for their atrocious custom, a dearth of provisions, which is an evil counsellor; not so the Necrophori, for, thanks to my generosity, victuals are superabundant, both beneath the soil and on the surface. Famine plays no part in this slaughter. Here we have the aberration of exhaustion, the morbid fury of a life on the point of extinction. As is generally the case, work bestows a peaceable disposition on the grave-digger, while inaction inspires him with perverted tastes. Having no longer anything to do, he breaks his fellow's limbs, eats him up, heedless of being mutilated or eaten up himself. This is the ultimate deliverance of verminous old age.



CHAPTER 6. THE BURYING-BEETLES: EXPERIMENTS.

Let us proceed to the rational prowess which has earned for the Necrophorus the better part of his renown and, to begin with, let us submit the case related by Clairville—that of the too hard soil and the call for assistance—to experimental test.

With this object in view, I pave the centre of the space beneath the cover, level with the soil, with a brick and sprinkle the latter with a thin layer of sand. This will be the soil in which digging is impracticable. All about it, for some distance and on the same level, spreads the loose soil, which is easy to dig.

In order to approximate to the conditions of the little story, I must have a Mouse; with a Mole, a heavy mass, the work of removal would perhaps present too much difficulty. To obtain the Mouse I place my friends and neighbours under requisition; they laugh at my whim but none the less proffer their traps. Yet, the moment a Mouse is needed, that very common animal becomes rare. Braving decorum in his speech, which follows the Latin of his ancestors, the Provencal says, but even more crudely than in my translation: "If you look for dung, the Asses become constipated!"

At last I possess the Mouse of my dreams! She comes to me from that refuge, furnished with a truss of straw, in which official charity gives the hospitality of a day to the beggar wandering over the face of the fertile earth; from that municipal hostel whence one invariably emerges verminous. O Reaumur, who used to invite marquises to see your caterpillars change their skins, what would you have said of a future disciple conversant with such wretchedness as this? Perhaps it is well that we should not be ignorant of it, so that we may take compassion on the sufferings of beasts.

The Mouse so greatly desired is mine. I place her upon the centre of the brick. The grave-diggers under the wire cover are now seven in number, of whom three are females. All have gone to earth: some are inactive, close to the surface; the rest are busy in their crypts. The presence of the fresh corpse is promptly perceived. About seven o'clock in the morning, three Necrophori hurry up, two males and a female. They slip under the Mouse, who moves in jerks, a sign of the efforts of the burying-party. An attempt is made to dig into the layer of sand which hides the brick, so that a bank of sand accumulates about the body.

For a couple of hours the jerks continue without results. I profit by the circumstance to investigate the manner in which the work is performed. The bare brick allows me to see what the excavated soil concealed from me. If it is necessary to move the body, the Beetle turns over; with his six claws he grips the hair of the dead animal, props himself upon his back and pushes, making a lever of his head and the tip of his abdomen. If digging is required, he resumes the normal position. So, turn and turn about, the sexton strives, now with his claws in the air, when it is a question of shifting the body or dragging it lower down; now with his feet on the ground, when it is necessary to deepen the grave.

The point at which the Mouse lies is finally recognized as unassailable. A male appears in the open. He explores the specimen, goes the round of it, scratches a little at random. He goes back; and immediately the body rocks. Is he advising his collaborators of what he has discovered? Is he arranging matters with a view to their establishing themselves elsewhere, on propitious soil?

The facts are far from confirming this idea. When he shakes the body, the others imitate him and push, but without combining their efforts in a given direction, for, after advancing a little towards the edge of the brick, the burden goes back again, returning to the point of departure. In the absence of any concerted understanding, their efforts of leverage are wasted. Nearly three hours are occupied by oscillations which mutually annul one another. The Mouse does not cross the little sand-hill heaped about it by the rakes of the workers.

For the second time a male emerges and makes a round of exploration. A bore is made in workable earth, close beside the brick. This is a trial excavation, to reveal the nature of the soil; a narrow well, of no great depth, into which the insect plunges to half its length. The well-sinker returns to the other workers, who arch their backs, and the load progresses a finger's-breadth towards the point recognized as favourable. Have they done the trick this time? No, for after a while the Mouse recoils. No progress towards a solution of the difficulty.

Now two males come out in search of information, each of his own accord. Instead of stopping at the point already sounded, a point most judiciously chosen, it seemed, on account of its proximity, which would save laborious transportation, they precipitately scour the whole area of the cage, sounding the soil on this side and on that and ploughing superficial furrows in it. They get as far from the brick as the limits of the enclosure permit.

They dig, by preference, against the base of the cover; here they make several borings, without any reason, so far as I can see, the bed of soil being everywhere equally assailable away from the brick; the first point sounded is abandoned for a second, which is rejected in its turn. A third and a fourth are tried; then another and yet another. At the sixth point the selection is made. In all these cases the excavation is by no means a grave destined to receive the Mouse, but a mere trial boring, of inconsiderable depth, its diameter being that of the digger's body.

A return is made to the Mouse, who suddenly quivers, oscillates, advances, recoils, first in one direction, then in another, until in the end the little hillock of sand is crossed. Now we are free of the brick and on excellent soil. Little by little the load advances. This is no cartage by a team hauling in the open, but a jerky displacement, the work of invisible levers. The body seems to move of its own accord.

This time, after so many hesitations, their efforts are concerted; at all events, the load reaches the region sounded far more rapidly than I expected. Then begins the burial, according to the usual method. It is one o'clock. The Necrophori have allowed the hour-hand of the clock to go half round the dial while verifying the condition of the surrounding spots and displacing the Mouse.

In this experiment it appears at the outset that the males play a major part in the affairs of the household. Better-equipped, perhaps, than their mates, they make investigations when a difficulty occurs; they inspect the soil, recognize whence the check arises and choose the point at which the grave shall be made. In the lengthy experiment of the brick, the two males alone explored the surroundings and set to work to solve the difficulty. Confiding in their assistance, the female, motionless beneath the Mouse, awaited the result of their investigations. The tests which are to follow will confirm the merits of these valiant auxiliaries.

In the second place, the point where the Mouse lay being recognized as presenting an insurmountable resistance, there was no grave dug in advance, a little farther off, in the light soil. All attempts were limited, I repeat, to shallow soundings which informed the insect of the possibility of inhumation.

It is absolute nonsense to speak of their first preparing the grave to which the body will afterwards be carted. To excavate the soil, our grave-diggers must feel the weight of their dead on their backs. They work only when stimulated by the contact of its fur. Never, never in this world do they venture to dig a grave unless the body to be buried already occupies the site of the cavity. This is absolutely confirmed by my two and a half months and more of daily observations.

The rest of Clairville's anecdote bears examination no better. We are told that the Necrophorus in difficulties goes in search of assistance and returns with companions who assist him to bury the Mouse. This, in another form, is the edifying story of the Sacred Beetle whose pellet had rolled into a rut, powerless to withdraw his treasure from the gulf, the wily Dung-beetle called together three or four of his neighbours, who benevolently recovered the pellet, returning to their labours after the work of salvage.

The exploit—so ill-interpreted—of the thieving pill-roller sets me on my guard against that of the undertaker. Shall I be too exigent if I enquire what precautions the observer adopted to recognize the owner of the Mouse on his return, when he reappears, as we are told, with four assistants? What sign denotes that one of the five who was able, in so rational a manner, to appeal for help? Can one even be sure that the one to disappear returns and forms one of the band? There is nothing to indicate it; and this was the essential point which a sterling observer was bound not to neglect. Were they not rather five chance Necrophori who, guided by the smell, without any previous understanding, hastened to the abandoned Mouse to exploit her on their own account? I incline to this opinion, the most likely of all in the absence of exact information.

Probability becomes certainty if we submit the case to the verification of experiment. The test with the brick already gives us some information. For six hours my three specimens exhausted themselves in efforts before they got to the length of removing their booty and placing it on practicable soil. In this long and heavy task helpful neighbours would have been anything but unwelcome. Four other Necrophori, buried here and there under a little sand, comrades and acquaintances, helpers of the day before, were occupying the same cage; and not one of those concerned thought of summoning them to give assistance. Despite their extreme embarrassment, the owners of the Mouse accomplished their task to the end, without the least help, though this could have been so easily requisitioned.

Being three, one might say, they considered themselves sufficiently strong; they needed no one else to lend them a hand. The objection does not hold good. On many occasions and under conditions even more difficult than those presented by a stony soil, I have again and again seen isolated Necrophori exhausting themselves in striving against my artifices; yet not once did they leave their work to recruit helpers. Collaborators, it is true, did often arrive, but they were convoked by their sense of smell, not by the first possessor. They were fortuitous helpers; they were never called in. They were welcomed without disagreement, but also without gratitude. They were not summoned; they were tolerated. In the glazed shelter where I keep the cage I happened to catch one of these chance assistants in the act. Passing that way in the night and scenting dead flesh, he had entered where none of his kind had yet penetrated of his own free will. I surprised him on the wire-gauze dome of the cover. If the wire had not prevented him, he would have set to work incontinently, in company with the rest. Had my captives invited him? Assuredly not. He had hastened thither attracted by the odour of the Mole, heedless of the efforts of others. So it was with those whose obliging assistance is extolled. I repeat, in respect of their imaginary prowess, what I have said elsewhere of that of the Sacred Beetles: the story is a childish one, worthy of ranking with any fairy-tale written for the amusement of the simple.

A hard soil, necessitating the removal of the body, is not the only difficulty familiar to the Necrophori. Often, perhaps more often than not, the ground is covered with grass, above all with couch-grass, whose tenacious rootlets form an inextricable network below the surface. To dig in the interstices is possible, but to drag the dead animal through them is another matter: the meshes of the net are too close to give it passage. Will the grave-digger find himself reduced to impotence by such an impediment, which must be an extremely common one? That could not be.

Exposed to this or that habitual obstacle in the exercise of his calling, the animal is always equipped accordingly; otherwise his profession would be impracticable. No end is attained without the necessary means and aptitudes. Besides that of the excavator, the Necrophorus certainly possesses another art: the art of breaking the cables, the roots, the stolons, the slender rhizomes which check the body's descent into the grave. To the work of the shovel and the pick must be added that of the shears. All this is perfectly logical and may be foreseen with complete lucidity. Nevertheless, let us invoke experiment, the best of witnesses.

I borrow from the kitchen-range an iron trivet whose legs will supply a solid foundation for the engine which I am devising. This is a coarse network of strips of raphia, a fairly accurate imitation of the network of couch-grass roots. The very irregular meshes are nowhere wide enough to admit of the passage of the creature to be buried, which in this case is a Mole. The trivet is planted with its three feet in the soil of the cage; its top is level with the surface of the soil. A little sand conceals the meshes. The Mole is placed in the centre; and my squad of sextons is let loose upon the body.

Without a hitch the burial is accomplished in the course of an afternoon. The hammock of raphia, almost equivalent to the natural network of couch-grass turf, scarcely disturbs the process of inhumation. Matters do not go forward quite so quickly; and that is all. No attempt is made to shift the Mole, who sinks into the ground where he lies. The operation completed, I remove the trivet. The network is broken at the spot where the corpse lay. A few strips have been gnawed through; a small number, only so many as were strictly necessary to permit the passage of the body.

Well done, my undertakers! I expected no less of your savoir-faire. You have foiled the artifices of the experimenter by employing your resources against natural obstacles. With mandibles for shears, you have patiently cut my threads as you would have gnawed the cordage of the grass-roots. This is meritorious, if not deserving of exceptional glorification. The most limited of the insects which work in earth would have done as much if subjected to similar conditions.

Let us ascend a stage in the series of difficulties. The Mole is now fixed with a lashing of raphia fore and aft to a light horizontal cross-bar which rests on two firmly-planted forks. It is like a joint of venison on a spit, though rather oddly fastened. The dead animal touches the ground throughout the length of its body.

The Necrophori disappear under the corpse, and, feeling the contact of its fur, begin to dig. The grave grows deeper and an empty space appears, but the coveted object does not descend, retained as it is by the cross-bar which the two forks keep in place. The digging slackens, the hesitations become prolonged.

However, one of the grave-diggers ascends to the surface, wanders over the Mole, inspects him and ends by perceiving the hinder strap. Tenaciously he gnaws and ravels it. I hear the click of the shears that completes the rupture. Crack! The thing is done. Dragged down by his own weight, the Mole sinks into the grave, but slantwise, with his head still outside, kept in place by the second ligature.

The Beetles proceed to the burial of the hinder part of the Mole; they twitch and jerk it now in this direction, now in that. Nothing comes of it; the thing refuses to give. A fresh sortie is made by one of them to discover what is happening overhead. The second ligature is perceived, is severed in turn, and henceforth the work proceeds as well as could be desired.

My compliments, perspicacious cable-cutters! But I must not exaggerate. The lashings of the Mole were for you the little cords with which you are so familiar in turfy soil. You have severed them, as well as the hammock of the previous experiment, just as you sever with the blades of your shears any natural filament which stretches across your catacombs. It is, in your calling, an indispensable knack. If you had had to learn it by experience, to think it out before practising it, your race would have disappeared, killed by the hesitations of its apprenticeship, for the spots fertile in Moles, Frogs, Lizards and other victuals to your taste are usually grass-covered.

You are capable of far better things yet; but, before proceeding to these, let us examine the case when the ground bristles with slender brushwood, which holds the corpse at a short distance from the ground. Will the find thus suspended by the hazard of its fall remain unemployed? Will the Necrophori pass on, indifferent to the superb tit-bit which they see and smell a few inches above their heads, or will they make it descend from its gibbet?

Game does not abound to such a point that it can be disdained if a few efforts will obtain it. Before I see the thing happen I am persuaded that it will fall, that the Necrophori, often confronted by the difficulties of a body which is not lying on the soil, must possess the instinct to shake it to the ground. The fortuitous support of a few bits of stubble, of a few interlaced brambles, a thing so common in the fields, should not be able to baffle them. The overthrow of the suspended body, if placed too high, should certainly form part of their instinctive methods. For the rest, let us watch them at work.

I plant in the sand of the cage a meagre tuft of thyme. The shrub is at most some four inches in height. In the branches I place a Mouse, entangling the tail, the paws and the neck among the twigs in order to increase the difficulty. The population of the cage now consists of fourteen Necrophori and will remain the same until the close of my investigations. Of course they do not all take part simultaneously in the day's work; the majority remain underground, somnolent, or occupied in setting their cellars in order. Sometimes only one, often two, three or four, rarely more, busy themselves with the dead creature which I offer them. To-day two hasten to the Mouse, who is soon perceived overhead in the tuft of thyme.

They gain the summit of the plant by way of the wire trellis of the cage. Here are repeated, with increased hesitation, due to the inconvenient nature of the support, the tactics employed to remove the body when the soil is unfavourable. The insect props itself against a branch, thrusting alternately with back and claws, jerking and shaking vigorously until the point where at it is working is freed from its fetters. In one brief shift, by dint of heaving their backs, the two collaborators extricate the body from the entanglement of twigs. Yet another shake; and the Mouse is down. The burial follows.

There is nothing new in this experiment; the find has been dealt with just as though it lay upon soil unsuitable for burial. The fall is the result of an attempt to transport the load.

The time has come to set up the Frog's gibbet celebrated by Gledditsch. The batrachian is not indispensable; a Mole will serve as well or even better. With a ligament of raphia I fix him, by his hind-legs, to a twig which I plant vertically in the ground, inserting it to no great depth. The creature hangs plumb against the gibbet, its head and shoulders making ample contact with the soil.

The gravediggers set to work beneath the part which lies upon the ground, at the very foot of the stake; they dig a funnel-shaped hole, into which the muzzle, the head and the neck of the mole sink little by little. The gibbet becomes uprooted as they sink and eventually falls, dragged over by the weight of its heavy burden. I am assisting at the spectacle of the overturned stake, one of the most astonishing examples of rational accomplishment which has ever been recorded to the credit of the insect.

This, for one who is considering the problem of instinct, is an exciting moment. But let us beware of forming conclusions as yet; we might be in too great a hurry. Let us ask ourselves first whether the fall of the stake was intentional or fortuitous. Did the Necrophori lay it bare with the express intention of causing it to fall? Or did they, on the contrary, dig at its base solely in order to bury that part of the mole which lay on the ground? that is the question, which, for the rest, is very easy to answer.

The experiment is repeated; but this time the gibbet is slanting and the Mole, hanging in a vertical position, touches the ground at a couple of inches from the base of the gibbet. Under these conditions absolutely no attempt is made to overthrow the latter. Not the least scrape of a claw is delivered at the foot of the gibbet. The entire work of excavation is accomplished at a distance, under the body, whose shoulders are lying on the ground. There—and there only—a hole is dug to receive the free portion of the body, the part accessible to the sextons.

A difference of an inch in the position of the suspended animal annihilates the famous legend. Even so, many a time, the most elementary sieve, handled with a little logic, is enough to winnow the confused mass of affirmations and to release the good grain of truth.

Yet another shake of the sieve. The gibbet is oblique or vertical indifferently; but the Mole, always fixed by a hinder limb to the top of the twig, does not touch the soil; he hangs a few fingers'-breadths from the ground, out of the sextons' reach.

What will the latter do? Will they scrape at the foot of the gibbet in order to overturn it? By no means; and the ingenuous observer who looked for such tactics would be greatly disappointed. No attention is paid to the base of the support. It is not vouchsafed even a stroke of the rake. Nothing is done to overturn it, nothing, absolutely nothing! It is by other methods that the Burying-beetles obtain the Mole.

These decisive experiments, repeated under many different forms, prove that never, never in this world do the Necrophori dig, or even give a superficial scrape, at the foot of the gallows, unless the hanging body touch the ground at that point. And, in the latter case, if the twig should happen to fall, its fall is in nowise an intentional result, but a mere fortuitous effect of the burial already commenced.

What, then, did the owner of the Frog of whom Gledditsch tells us really see? If his stick was overturned, the body placed to dry beyond the assaults of the Necrophori must certainly have touched the soil: a strange precaution against robbers and the damp! We may fittingly attribute more foresight to the preparer of dried Frogs and allow him to hang the creature some inches from the ground. In this case all my experiments emphatically assert that the fall of the stake undermined by the sextons is a pure matter of imagination.

Yet another of the fine arguments in favour of the reasoning power of animals flies from the light of investigation and founders in the slough of error! I admire your simple faith, you masters who take seriously the statements of chance-met observers, richer in imagination than in veracity; I admire your credulous zeal, when, without criticism, you build up your theories on such absurdities.

Let us proceed. The stake is henceforth planted vertically, but the body hanging on it does not reach the base: a condition which suffices to ensure that there is never any digging at this point. I make use of a Mouse, who, by reason of her trifling weight, will lend herself better to the insect's manoeuvres. The dead body is fixed by the hind-legs to the top of the stake with a ligature of raphia. It hangs plumb, in contact with the stick.

Very soon two Necrophori have discovered the tit-bit. They climb up the miniature mast; they explore the body, dividing its fur by thrusts of the head. It is recognized to be an excellent find. So to work. Here we have again, but under far more difficult conditions, the tactics employed when it was necessary to displace the unfavourably situated body: the two collaborators slip between the Mouse and the stake, when, taking a grip of the latter and exerting a leverage with their backs, they jerk and shake the body, which oscillates, twirls about, swings away from the stake and relapses. All the morning is passed in vain attempts, interrupted by explorations on the animal's body.

In the afternoon the cause of the check is at last recognized; not very clearly, for in the first place the two obstinate riflers of the gallows attack the hind-legs of the Mouse, a little below the ligature. They strip them bare, flay them and cut away the flesh about the heel. They have reached the bone, when one of them finds the raphia beneath his mandibles. This, to him, is a familiar thing, representing the gramineous fibre so frequent in the case of burial in grass-covered soil. Tenaciously the shears gnaw at the bond; the vegetable fetter is severed and the Mouse falls, to be buried a little later.

If it were isolated, this severance of the suspending tie would be a magnificent performance; but considered in connection with the sum of the Beetle's customary labours it loses all far-reaching significance. Before attacking the ligature, which was not concealed in any way, the insect exerted itself for a whole morning in shaking the body, its usual method. Finally, finding the cord, it severed it, as it would have severed a ligament of couch-grass encountered underground.

Under the conditions devised for the Beetle, the use of the shears is the indispensable complement of the use of the shovel; and the modicum of discernment at his disposal is enough to inform him when the blades of his shears will be useful. He cuts what embarrasses him with no more exercise of reason than he displays when placing the corpse underground. So little does he grasp the connection between cause and effect that he strives to break the bone of the leg before gnawing at the bast which is knotted close beside him. The difficult task is attacked before the extremely simple.

Difficult, yes, but not impossible, provided that the Mouse be young. I begin again with a ligature of iron wire, on which the shears of the insect can obtain no purchase, and a tender Mouselet, half the size of an adult. This time a tibia is gnawed through, cut in two by the Beetle's mandibles near the spring of the heel. The detached member leaves plenty of space for the other, which readily slips from the metallic band; and the little body falls to the ground.

But, if the bone be too hard, if the body suspended be that of a Mole, an adult Mouse, or a Sparrow, the wire ligament opposes an insurmountable obstacle to the attempts of the Necrophori, who, for nearly a week, work at the hanging body, partly stripping it of fur or feather and dishevelling it until it forms a lamentable object, and at last abandon it, when desiccation sets in. A last resource, however, remains, one as rational as infallible. It is to overthrow the stake. Of course, not one dreams of doing so.

For the last time let us change our artifices. The top of the gibbet consists of a little fork, with the prongs widely opened and measuring barely two-fifths of an inch in length. With a thread of hemp, less easily attacked than a strip of raphia, I bind together, a little above the heels, the hind-legs of an adult Mouse; and between the legs I slip one of the prongs of the fork. To make the body fall it is enough to slide it a little way upwards; it is like a young Rabbit hanging in the front of a poulterer's shop.

Five Necrophori come to inspect my preparations. After a great deal of futile shaking, the tibiae are attacked. This, it seems, is the method usually employed when the body is retained by one of its limbs in some narrow fork of a low-growing plant. While trying to saw through the bone—a heavy job this time—one of the workers slips between the shackled limbs. So situated, he feels against his back the furry touch of the Mouse. Nothing more is needed to arouse his propensity to thrust with his back. With a few heaves of the lever the thing is done; the Mouse rises a little, slides over the supporting peg and falls to the ground.

Is this manoeuvre really thought out? Has the insect indeed perceived, by the light of a flash of reason, that in order to make the tit-bit fall it was necessary to unhook it by sliding it along the peg? Has it really perceived the mechanism of suspension? I know some persons—indeed, I know many—who, in the presence of this magnificent result, would be satisfied without further investigation.

More difficult to convince, I modify the experiment before drawing a conclusion. I suspect that the Necrophorus, without any prevision of the consequences of his action, heaved his back simply because he felt the legs of the creature above him. With the system of suspension adopted, the push of the back, employed in all cases of difficulty, was brought to bear first upon the point of support; and the fall resulted from this happy coincidence. That point, which has to be slipped along the peg in order to unhook the object, ought really to be situated at a short distance from the Mouse, so that the Necrophori shall no longer feel her directly against their backs when they push.

A piece of wire binds together now the tarsi of a Sparrow, now the heels of a Mouse and is bent, at a distance of three-quarters of an inch or so, into a little ring, which slips very loosely over one of the prongs of the fork, a short, almost horizontal prong. To make the hanging body fall, the slightest thrust upon this ring is sufficient; and, owing to its projection from the peg, it lends itself excellently to the insect's methods. In short, the arrangement is the same as it was just now, with this difference, that the point of support is at a short distance from the suspended animal.

My trick, simple though it be, is fully successful. For a long time the body is repeatedly shaken, but in vain; the tibiae or tarsi, unduly hard, refuse to yield to the patient saw. Sparrows and Mice grow dry and shrivelled, unused, upon the gibbet. Sooner in one case, later in another, my Necrophori abandon the insoluble problem in mechanics: to push, ever so little, the movable support and so to unhook the coveted carcass.

Curious reasoners, in faith! If they had had, but now, a lucid idea of the mutual relations between the shackled limbs and the suspending peg; if they had made the Mouse fall by a reasoned manoeuvre, whence comes it that the present artifice, no less simple than the first, is to them an insurmountable obstacle? For days and days they work on the body, examine it from head to foot, without becoming aware of the movable support, the cause of their misadventure. In vain do I prolong my watch; never do I see a single one of them push it with his foot or butt it with his head.

Their defeat is not due to lack of strength. Like the Geotrupes, they are vigorous excavators. Grasped in the closed hand, they insinuate themselves through the interstices of the fingers and plough up your skin in a fashion to make you very quickly loose your hold. With his head, a robust ploughshare, the Beetle might very easily push the ring off its short support. He is not able to do so because he does not think of it; he does not think of it because he is devoid of the faculty attributed to him, in order to support its thesis, by the dangerous prodigality of transformism.

Divine reason, sun of the intellect, what a clumsy slap in thy august countenance, when the glorifiers of the animal degrade thee with such dullness!

Let us now examine under another aspect the mental obscurity of the Necrophori. My captives are not so satisfied with their sumptuous lodging that they do not seek to escape, especially when there is a dearth of labour, that sovran consoler of the afflicted, man or beast. Internment within the wire cover palls upon them. So, the Mole buried and all in order in the cellar, they stray uneasily over the wire-gauze of the dome; they clamber up, descend, ascend again and take to flight, a flight which instantly becomes a fall, owing to collision with the wire grating. They pick themselves up and begin again. The sky is superb; the weather is hot, calm and propitious for those in search of the Lizard crushed beside the footpath. Perhaps the effluvia of the gamy tit-bit have reached them, coming from afar, imperceptible to any other sense than that of the Sexton-beetles. So my Necrophori are fain to go their ways.

Can they? Nothing would be easier if a glimmer of reason were to aid them. Through the wire network, over which they have so often strayed, they have seen, outside, the free soil, the promised land which they long to reach. A hundred times if once have they dug at the foot of the rampart. There, in vertical wells, they take up their station, drowsing whole days on end while unemployed. If I give them a fresh Mole, they emerge from their retreat by the entrance corridor and come to hide themselves beneath the belly of the beast. The burial over, they return, one here, one there, to the confines of the enclosure and disappear beneath the soil.

Well, in two and a half months of captivity, despite long stays at the base of the trellis, at a depth of three-quarters of an inch beneath the surface, it is rare indeed for a Necrophorus to succeed in circumventing the obstacle, to prolong his excavation beneath the barrier, to make an elbow in it and to bring it out on the other side, a trifling task for these vigorous creatures. Of fourteen only one succeeded in escaping.

A chance deliverance and not premeditated; for, if the happy event had been the result of a mental combination, the other prisoners, practically his equals in powers of perception, would all, from first to last, discover by rational means the elbowed path leading to the outer world; and the cage would promptly be deserted. The failure of the great majority proves that the single fugitive was simply digging at random. Circumstances favoured him; and that is all. Do not let us make it a merit that he succeeded where all the others failed.

Let us also beware of attributing to the Necrophori an understanding more limited than is usual in entomological psychology. I find the ineptness of the undertaker in all the insects reared under the wire cover, on the bed of sand into which the rim of the dome sinks a little way. With very rare exceptions, fortuitous accidents, no insect has thought of circumventing the barrier by way of the base; none has succeeded in gaining the exterior by means of a slanting tunnel, not even though it were a miner by profession, as are the Dung-beetles par excellence. Captives under the wire dome, but desirous of escape, Sacred Beetles, Geotrupes, Copres, Gymnopleuri, Sisyphi, all see about them the freedom of space, the joys of the open sunlight; and not one thinks of going round under the rampart, a front which would present no difficulty to their pick-axes.

Even in the higher ranks of animality, examples of similar mental obfuscation are not lacking. Audubon relates how, in his days, the wild Turkeys were caught in North America.

In a clearing known to be frequented by these birds, a great cage was constructed with stakes driven into the ground. In the centre of the enclosure opened a short tunnel, which dipped under the palisade and returned to the surface outside the cage by a gentle slope, which was open to the sky. The central opening, large enough to give a bird free passage, occupied only a portion of the enclosure, leaving around it, against the circle of stakes, a wide unbroken zone. A few handfuls of maize were scattered in the interior of the trap, as well as round about it, and in particular along the sloping path, which passed under a sort of bridge and led to the centre of the contrivance. In short, the Turkey-trap presented an ever-open door. The bird found it in order to enter, but did not think of looking for it in order to return by it.

According to the famous American ornithologist, the Turkeys, lured by the grains of maize, descended the insidious slope, entered the short underground passage and beheld, at the end of it, plunder and the light. A few steps farther and the gluttons emerged, one by one, from beneath the bridge. They distributed themselves about the enclosure. The maize was abundant; and the Turkeys' crops grew swollen.

When all was gathered, the band wished to retreat, but not one of the prisoners paid any attention to the central hole by which he had arrived. Gobbling uneasily, they passed again and again across the bridge whose arch was yawning beside them; they circled round against the palisade, treading a hundred times in their own footprints; they thrust their necks, with their crimson wattles, through the bars; and there, with beaks in the open air, they remained until they were exhausted.

Remember, inept fowl, the occurrences of a little while ago; think of the tunnel which led you hither! If there be in that poor brain of yours an atom of capacity, put two ideas together and remind yourself that the passage by which you entered is there and open for your escape! You will do nothing of the kind. The light, an irresistible attraction, holds you subjugated against the palisade; and the shadow of the yawning pit, which has but lately permitted you to enter and will quite as readily permit of your exit, leaves you indifferent. To recognize the use of this opening you would have to reflect a little, to evolve the past; but this tiny retrospective calculation is beyond your powers. So the trapper, returning a few days later, will find a rich booty, the entire flock imprisoned!

Of poor intellectual repute, does the Turkey deserve his name for stupidity? He does not appear to be more limited than another. Audubon depicts him as endowed with certain useful ruses, in particular when he has to baffle the attacks of his nocturnal enemy, the Virginian Owl. As for his actions in the snare with the underground passage, any other bird, impassioned of the light, would do the same.

Under rather more difficult conditions, the Necrophorus repeats the ineptness of the Turkey. When he wishes to return to the open daylight, after resting in a short burrow against the rim of the wire cover, the Beetle, seeing a little light filtering down through the loose soil, reascends by the path of entry, incapable of telling himself that it would suffice to prolong the tunnel as far in the opposite direction for him to reach the outer world beyond the wall and gain his freedom. Here again is one in whom we shall seek in vain for any indication of reflection. Like the rest, in spite of his legendary renown, he has no guide but the unconscious promptings of instinct.



CHAPTER 7. THE BLUEBOTTLE.

To purge the earth of death's impurities and cause deceased animal matter to be once more numbered among the treasures of life there are hosts of sausage-queens, including, in our part of the world, the Bluebottle (Calliphora vomitaria, Lin.) and the Grey Flesh-fly (Sarcophaga carnaria, Lin.) Every one knows the first, the big, dark-blue Fly who, after effecting her designs in the ill-watched meat-safe, settles on our window-panes and keeps up a solemn buzzing, anxious to be off in the sun and ripen a fresh emission of germs. How does she lay her eggs, the origin of the loathsome maggot that battens poisonously on our provisions whether of game or butcher's meat? What are her stratagems and how can we foil them? This is what I propose to investigate.

The Bluebottle frequents our homes during autumn and a part of winter, until the cold becomes severe; but her appearance in the fields dates back much earlier. On the first fine day in February, we shall see her warming herself, chillily, against the sunny walls. In April, I notice her in considerable numbers on the laurustinus. It is here that she seems to pair, while sipping the sugary exudations of the small white flowers. The whole of the summer season is spent out of doors, in brief flights from one refreshment-bar to the next. When autumn comes, with its game, she makes her way into our houses and remains until the hard frosts.

This suits my stay-at-home habits and especially my legs, which are bending under the weight of years. I need not run after the subjects of my present study; they call on me. Besides, I have vigilant assistants. The household knows of my plans. One and all bring me, in a little screw of paper, the noisy visitor just captured against the panes.

Thus do I fill my vivarium, which consists of a large, bell-shaped cage of wire-gauze, standing in an earthenware pan full of sand. A mug containing honey is the dining-room of the establishment. Here the captives come to recruit themselves in their hours of leisure. To occupy their maternal cares, I employ small birds—Chaffinches, Linnets, Sparrows—brought down, in the enclosure, by my son's gun.

I have just served up a Linnet shot two days ago. I next place in the cage a Bluebottle, one only, to avoid confusion. Her fat belly proclaims the advent of laying-time. An hour later, when the excitement of being put in prison is allayed, my captive is in labour. With eager, jerky steps, she explores the morsel of game, goes from the head to the tail, returns from the tail to the head, repeats the action several times and at last settles near an eye, a dimmed eye sunk into its socket.

The ovipositor bends at a right angle and dives into the junction of the beak, straight down to the root. Then the eggs are emitted for nearly half an hour. The layer, utterly absorbed in her serious business, remains stationary and impassive and is easily observed through my lens. A movement on my part would doubtless scare her; but my restful presence gives her no anxiety. I am nothing to her.

The discharge does not go on continuously until the ovaries are exhausted; it is intermittent and performed in so many packets. Several times over, the Fly leaves the bird's beak and comes to take a rest upon the wire-gauze, where she brushes her hind-legs one against the other. In particular, before using it again, she cleans, smooths and polishes her laying-tool, the probe that places the eggs. Then, feeling her womb still teeming, she returns to the same spot at the joint of the beak. The delivery is resumed, to cease presently and then begin anew. A couple of hours are thus spent in alternate standing near the eye and resting on the wire-gauze.

At last it is over. The Fly does not go back to the bird, a proof that her ovaries are exhausted. The next day she is dead. The eggs are dabbed in a continuous layer, at the entrance to the throat, at the root of the tongue, on the membrane of the palate. Their number appears considerable; the whole inside of the gullet is white with them. I fix a little wooden prop between the two mandibles of the beak, to keep them open and enable me to see what happens.

I learn in this way that the hatching takes place in a couple of days. As soon as they are born, the young vermin, a swarming mass, leave the place where they are and disappear down the throat.

The beak of the bird invaded was closed at the start, as far as the natural contact of the mandibles allowed. There remained a narrow slit at the base, sufficient at most to admit the passage of a horse-hair. It was through this that the laying was performed. Lengthening her ovipositor like a telescope, the mother inserted the point of her implement, a point slightly hardened with a horny armour. The fineness of the probe equals the fineness of the aperture. But, if the beak were entirely closed, where would the eggs be laid then?

With a tied thread I keep the two mandibles in absolute contact; and I place a second Bluebottle in the presence of the Linnet, whom the colonists have already entered by the beak. This time the laying takes place on one of the eyes, between the lid and the eyeball. At the hatching, which again occurs a couple of days later, the grubs make their way into the fleshy depths of the socket. The eyes and the beak, therefore, form the two chief entrances into feathered game.

There are others; and these are the wounds. I cover the Linnet's head with a paper hood which will prevent invasion through the beak and eyes. I serve it, under the wire-gauze bell, to a third egg-layer. The bird has been struck by a shot in the breast, but the sore is not bleeding: no outer stain marks the injured spot. Moreover, I am careful to arrange the feathers, to smooth them with a hair-pencil, so that the bird looks quite smart and has every appearance of being untouched.

The Fly is soon there. She inspects the Linnet from end to end; with her front tarsi she fumbles at the breast and belly. It is a sort of auscultation by sense of touch. The insect becomes aware of what is under the feathers by the manner in which these react. If scent lends its assistance, it can only be very slightly, for the game is not yet high. The wound is soon found. No drop of blood is near it, for it is closed by a plug of down rammed into it by the shot. The Fly takes up her position without separating the feathers or uncovering the wound. She remains here for two hours without stirring, motionless, with her abdomen concealed beneath the plumage. My eager curiosity does not distract her from her business for a moment.

When she has finished, I take her place. There is nothing either on the skin or at the mouth of the wound. I have to withdraw the downy plug and dig to some depth before discovering the eggs. The ovipositor has therefore lengthened its extensible tube and pushed beyond the feather stopper driven in by the lead. The eggs are in one packet; they number about three hundred.

When the beak and eyes are rendered inaccessible, when the body, moreover, has no wounds, the laying still takes place, but this time in a hesitating and niggardly fashion. I pluck the bird completely, the better to watch what happens; also, I cover the head with a paper hood to close the usual means of access. For a long time, with jerky steps, the mother explores the body in every direction; she takes her stand by preference on the head, which she sounds by tapping on it with her front tarsi. She knows that the openings which she needs are there, under the paper; but she also knows how frail are her grubs, how powerless to pierce their way through the strange obstacle which stops her as well and interferes with the work of her ovipositor. The cowl inspires her with profound distrust. Despite the tempting bait of the veiled head, not an egg is laid on the wrapper, slight though it may be.

Weary of vain attempts to compass this obstacle, the Fly at last decides in favour of other points, but not on the breast, belly, or back, where the hide would seem too tough and the light too intrusive. She needs dark hiding-places, corners where the skin is very delicate. The spots chosen are the cavity of the axilla, corresponding with our arm-pit, and the crease where the thigh joins the belly. Eggs are laid in both places, but not many, showing that the groin and the axilla are adopted only reluctantly and for lack of a better spot.

With an unplucked bird, also hooded, the same experiment failed: the feathers prevent the Fly from slipping into those deep places. Let us add, in conclusion, that, on a skinned bird, or simply on a piece of butcher's meat, the laying is effected on any part whatever, provided that it be dark. The gloomiest corners are the favourite ones.

It follows from all this that, to lay her eggs, the Bluebottle picks out either naked wounds or else the mucous membranes of the mouth or eyes, which are not protected by a skin of any thickness. She also needs darkness.

The perfect efficiency of the paper bag, which prevents the inroads of the worms through the eye-sockets or the beak, suggests a similar experiment with the whole bird. It is a matter of wrapping the body in a sort of artificial skin which will be as discouraging to the Fly as the natural skin. Linnets, some with deep wounds, others almost intact, are placed one by one in paper envelopes similar to those in which the nursery-gardener keeps his seeds, envelopes just folded, without being stuck. The paper is quite ordinary and of middling thickness. Torn pieces of newspaper serve the purpose.

These sheaths with the corpses inside them are freely exposed to the air, on the table in my study, where they are visited, according to the time of day, in dense shade and in bright sunlight. Attracted by the effluvia from the dead meat, the Bluebottles haunt my laboratory, the windows of which are always open. I see them daily alighting on the envelopes and very busily exploring them, apprised of the contents by the gamy smell. Their incessant coming and going is a sign of intense cupidity; and yet none of them decides to lay on the bags. They do not even attempt to slide their ovipositor through the slits of the folds. The favourable season passes and not an egg is laid on the tempting wrappers. All the mothers abstain, judging the slender obstacle of the paper to be more than the vermin will be able to overcome.

This caution on the Fly's part does not at all surprise me: motherhood everywhere has great gleams of perspicacity. What does astonish me is the following result. The parcels containing the Linnets are left for a whole year uncovered on the table; they remain there for a second year and a third. I inspect the contents from time to time. The little birds are intact, with unrumpled feathers, free from smell, dry and light, like mummies. They have become not decomposed, but mummified.

I expected to see them putrefying, running into sanies, like corpses left to rot in the open air. On the contrary, the birds have dried and hardened, without undergoing any change. What did they want for their putrefaction? simply the intervention of the Fly. The maggot, therefore, is the primary cause of dissolution after death; it is, above all, the putrefactive chemist.

A conclusion not devoid of value may be drawn from my paper game-bags. In our markets, especially in those of the South, the game is hung unprotected from the hooks on the stalls. Larks strung up by the dozen with a wire through their nostrils, Thrushes, Plovers, Teal, Partridges, Snipe, in short, all the glories of the spit which the autumn migration brings us, remain for days and weeks at the mercy of the Flies. The buyer allows himself to be tempted by a goodly exterior; he makes his purchase and, back at home, just when the bird is being prepared for roasting, he discovers that the promised dainty is alive with worms. O horror! There is nothing for it but to throw the loathsome, verminous thing away.

The Bluebottle is the culprit here. Everybody knows it, and nobody thinks seriously of shaking off her tyranny: not the retailer, nor the wholesale dealer, nor the killer of the game. What is wanted to keep the maggots out? Hardly anything: to slip each bird into a paper sheath. If this precaution were taken at the start, before the Flies arrive, any game would be safe and could be left indefinitely to attain the degree of ripeness required by the epicure's palate.

Stuffed with olives and myrtleberries, the Corsican Blackbirds are exquisite eating. We sometimes receive them at Orange, layers of them, packed in baskets through which the air circulates freely and each contained in a paper wrapper. They are in a state of perfect preservation, complying with the most exacting demands of the kitchen. I congratulate the nameless shipper who conceived the bright idea of clothing his Blackbirds in paper. Will his example find imitators? I doubt it.

There is, of course, a serious objection to this method of preservation. In its paper shroud, the article is invisible; it is not enticing; it does not inform the passer-by of its nature and qualities. There is one resource left which would leave the bird uncovered: simply to case the head in a paper cap. The head being the part most menaced, because of the mucous membrane of the throat and eyes, it would be enough, as a rule, to protect the head, in order to keep off the Flies and thwart their attempts.

Let us continue to study the Bluebottle, while varying our means of information. A tin, about four inches deep, contains a piece of butcher's meat. The lid is not put in quite straight and leaves a narrow slit at one point of its circumference, allowing, at most, of the passage of a fine needle. When the bait begins to give off a gamy scent, the mothers come, singly or in numbers. They are attracted by the odour which, transmitted through a thin crevice, hardly reaches my nostrils.

They explore the metal receptacle for some time, seeking an entrance. Finding naught that enables them to reach the coveted morsel, they decide to lay their eggs on the tin, just beside the aperture. Sometimes, when the width of the passage allows of it, they insert the ovipositor into the tin and lay the eggs inside, on the very edge of the slit. Whether outside or in, the eggs are dabbed down in a fairly regular and absolutely white layer.

We have seen the Bluebottle refusing to lay her eggs on the paper bag, notwithstanding the carrion fumes of the Linnet enclosed; yet now, without hesitation, she lays them on a sheet of metal. Can the nature of the floor make any difference to her? I replace the tin lid by a paper cover stretched and pasted over the orifice. With the point of my knife I make a narrow slit in this new lid. That is quite enough: the parent accepts the paper.

What determined her, therefore, is not simply the smell, which can easily be perceived even through the uncut paper, but, above all, the crevice, which will provide an entrance for the vermin, hatched outside, near the narrow passage. The maggots' mother has her own logic, her prudent foresight. She knows how feeble her wee grubs will be, how powerless to cut their way through an obstacle of any resistance; and so, despite the temptation of the smell, she refrains from laying, so long as she finds no entrance through which the new-born worms can slip unaided.

I wanted to know whether the colour, the shininess, the degree of hardness and other qualities of the obstacle would influence the decision of a mother obliged to lay her eggs under exceptional conditions. With this object in view, I employed small jars, each baited with a bit of butcher's meat. The respective lids were made of different-coloured paper, of oil-skin, or of some of that tin-foil, with its gold or coppery sheen, which is used for sealing liqueur-bottles. On not one of these covers did the mothers stop, with any desire to deposit their eggs; but, from the moment that the knife had made the narrow slit, all the lids were, sooner or later, visited and all, sooner or later, received the white shower somewhere near the gash. The look of the obstacle, therefore, does not count; dull or brilliant, drab or coloured: these are details of no importance; the thing that matters is that there should be a passage to allow the grubs to enter.

Though hatched outside, at a distance from the coveted morsel, the new-born worms are well able to find their refectory. As they release themselves from the egg, without hesitation, so accurate is their scent, they slip beneath the edge of the ill-joined lid, or through the passage cut by the knife. Behold them entering upon their promised land, their reeking paradise.

Eager to arrive, do they drop from the top of the wall? Not they! Slowly creeping, they make their way down the side of the jar; they use their fore-part, ever in quest of information, as a crutch and grapnel in one. They reach the meat and at once instal themselves upon it.

Let us continue our investigation, varying the conditions. A large test-tube, measuring nine inches high, is baited at the bottom with a lump of butcher's meat. It is closed with wire-gauze, whose meshes, two millimetres wide (.078 inch.—Translator's Note.), do not permit of the Fly's passage. The Bluebottle comes to my apparatus, guided by scent rather than sight. She hastens to the test-tube, whose contents are veiled under an opaque cover, with the same alacrity as to the open tube. The invisible attracts her quite as much as the visible.

She stays awhile on the lattice of the mouth, inspects it attentively; but, whether because circumstances failed to serve me, or because the wire network inspired her with distrust, I never saw her dab her eggs upon it for certain. As her evidence was doubtful, I had recourse to the Flesh-fly (Sarcophaga carnaria).

This Fly is less finicking in her preparations, she has more faith in the strength of her worms, which are born ready-formed and vigorous, and easily shows me what I wish to see. She explores the trellis-work, chooses a mesh through which she inserts the tip of her abdomen, and, undisturbed by my presence, emits, one after the other, a certain number of grubs, about ten or so. True, her visits will be repeated, increasing the family at a rate of which I am ignorant.

The new-born worms, thanks to a slight viscidity, cling for a moment to the wire-gauze; they swarm, wriggle, release themselves and leap into the chasm. It is a nine-inch drop at least. When this is done, the mother makes off, knowing for a certainty that her offspring will shift for themselves. If they fall on the meat, well and good; if they fall elsewhere, they can reach the morsel by crawling.

This confidence in the unknown factor of the precipice, with no indication but that of smell, deserves fuller investigation. From what height will the Flesh-fly dare to let her children drop? I top the test-tube with another tube, the width of the neck of a claret-bottle. The mouth is closed either with wire-gauze or with a paper cover with a slight cut in it. Altogether, the apparatus measures twenty-five inches in height. No matter: the fall is not serious for the lithe backs of the young grubs; and, in a few days, the test-tube is filled with larvae, in which it is easy to recognize the Flesh-fly's family by the fringed coronet that opens and shuts at the maggot's stern like the petals of a little flower. I did not see the mother operating: I was not there at the time; but there is no doubt possible of her coming, nor of the great dive taken by the family: the contents of the test-tube furnish me with a duly authenticated certificate.

I admire the leap and, to obtain one better still, I replace the tube by another, so that the apparatus now stands forty-six inches high. The column is erected at a spot frequented by Flies, in a dim light. Its mouth, closed with a wire-gauze cover, reaches the level of various other appliances, test-tubes and jars, which are already stocked or awaiting their colony of vermin. When the position is well-known to the Flies, I remove the other tubes and leave the column, lest the visitors should turn aside to easier ground.

From time to time the Bluebottle and the Flesh-fly perch on the trellis-work, make a short investigation and then decamp. Throughout the summer season, for three whole months, the apparatus remains where it is, without result: never a worm. What is the reason? Does the stench of the meat not spread, coming from that depth? Certainly it spreads: it is unmistakable to my dulled nostrils and still more so to the nostrils of my children, whom I call to bear witness. Then why does the Flesh-fly, who but now was dropping her grubs from a goodly height, refuse to let them fall from the top of a column twice as high? Does she fear lest her worms should be bruised by an excessive drop? There is nothing about her to point to anxiety aroused by the length of the shaft. I never see her explore the tube or take its size. She stands on the trellised orifice; and there the matter ends. Can she be apprised of the depth of the chasm by the comparative faintness of the offensive odours that arise from it? Can the sense of smell measure the distance and judge whether it be acceptable or not? Perhaps.

The fact remains that, despite the attraction of the scent, the Flesh-fly does not expose her worms to disproportionate falls. Can she know beforehand that, when the chrysalids break, her winged family, knocking with a sudden flight against the sides of a tall chimney, will be unable to get out? This foresight would be in agreement with the rules which order maternal instinct according to future needs.

But, when the fall does not exceed a certain depth, the budding worms of the Flesh-fly are dropped without a qualm, as all our experiments show. This principle has a practical application which is not without its value in matters of domestic economy. It is as well that the wonders of entomology should sometimes give us a hint of commonplace utility.

The usual meat-safe is a sort of large cage with a top and bottom of wood and four wire-gauze sides. Hooks fixed into the top are used whereby to hang pieces which we wish to protect from the Flies. Often, so as to employ the space to the best advantage, these pieces are simply laid on the floor of the cage. With these arrangements, are we sure of warding off the Fly and her vermin?

Not at all. We may protect ourselves against the Bluebottle, who is not much inclined to lay her eggs at a distance from the meat; but there is still the Flesh-fly, who is more venturesome and goes more briskly to work and who will slip the grubs through a hole in the meshes and drop them inside the safe. Agile as they are and well able to crawl, the worms will easily reach anything on the floor; the only things secure from their attacks will be the pieces hanging from the ceiling. It is not in the nature of maggots to explore the heights, especially if this implies climbing down a string in addition.

People also use wire-gauze dish-covers. The trellised dome protects the contents even less than does the meat-safe. The Flesh-fly takes no heed of it. She can drop her worms through the meshes on the covered joint.

Then what are we to do? Nothing could be simpler. We need only wrap the birds which we wish to preserve—Thrushes, Partridges, Snipe and so on—in separate paper envelopes; and the same with our beef and mutton. This defensive armour alone, while leaving ample room for the air to circulate, makes any invasion by the worms impossible; even without a cover or a meat-safe: not that paper possesses any special preservative virtues, but solely because it forms an impenetrable barrier. The Bluebottle carefully refrains from laying her eggs upon it and the Flesh-fly from bringing forth her offspring, both of them knowing that their new-born young are incapable of piercing the obstacle.

Paper is equally successful in our strife against the Moths, those plagues of our furs and clothes. To keep away these wholesale ravagers, people generally use camphor, naphthalene, tobacco, bunches of lavender, and other strong-scented remedies. Without wishing to malign those preservatives, we are bound to admit that the means employed are none too effective. The smell does very little to prevent the havoc of the Moths.

I would therefore advise our housewives, instead of all this chemist's stuff, to use newspapers of a suitable shape and size. Take whatever you wish to protect—your furs, your flannel, or your clothes—and pack each article carefully in a newspaper, joining the edges with a double fold, well pinned. If this joining is properly done, the Moth will never get inside. Since my advice has been taken and this method employed in my household, the old damage has no longer been repeated.

To return to the Fly. A piece of meat is hidden in a jar under a layer of fine, dry sand, a finger's-breadth thick. The jar has a wide mouth and is left quite open. Let whoso come that will, attracted by the smell. The Bluebottles are not long in inspecting what I have prepared for them: they enter the jar, go out and come back again, inquiring into the invisible thing revealed by its fragrance. A diligent watch enables me to see them fussing about, exploring the sandy expanse, tapping it with their feet, sounding it with their proboscis. I leave the visitors undisturbed for a fortnight or three weeks. None of them lays any eggs.

This is a repetition of what the paper bag, with its dead bird, showed me. The Flies refuse to lay on the sand, apparently for the same reasons. The paper was considered an obstacle which the frail vermin would not be able to overcome. With sand, the case is worse. Its grittiness would hurt the new-born weaklings, its dryness would absorb the moisture indispensable to their movements. Later, when preparing for the metamorphosis, when their strength has come to them, the grubs will dig the earth quite well and be able to descend: but, at the start, that would be very dangerous for them. Knowing these difficulties, the mothers, however greatly tempted by the smell, abstain from breeding. As a matter of fact, after long waiting, fearing lest some packets of eggs may have escaped my attention, I inspect the contents of the jar from top to bottom. Meat and sand contain neither larvae nor pupae: the whole is absolutely deserted.

The layer of sand being only a finger's-breadth thick, this experiment requires certain precautions. The meat may expand a little, in going bad, and protrude in one or two places. However small the fleshy eyots that show above the surface, the Flies come to them and breed. Sometimes also the juices oozing from the putrid meat soak a small extent of the sandy floor. That is enough for the maggot's first establishment. These causes of failure are avoided with a layer of sand about an inch thick. Then the Bluebottle, the Flesh-fly, and other Flies whose grubs batten on dead bodies are kept at a proper distance.