184 THE UNIVERSE. 



this manoeuvre being continued at the same time beneath 

 all parts of the dead body, it disappears, sinking little by 

 little. And when it has at last arrived below the level of 

 the soil, the sexton has only, in order to hide it from view 

 and finish its work, to throw a few portions of the upturned 



03. Burying-Beetles interring a small Rat. 



earth upon the little animal, which is as completely en- 

 tombed as if it had been placed in a liquid paste. 1 



Thus ends the task which I have several times seen exe- 

 cuted with my own eyes, and which some persons have 

 called in question on account of its being so extraordinary. 



1 The English burying-beetle (Necropho?-us Vespi'lo), almost, if not quite, 

 identical with that of France, certainly inters birds. Rennie found four hard at 

 work on Putney Heath, burying a dead crow ; and M. Gleditsch says that in 

 fifty days four beetles interred four frogs, three small birds, two fishes, one mole, 

 and two grasshoppers ; besides the entrails of a fish, and two morsels of the lungs 

 of an ox. Act. Acad. Berolin. 1752. Tr. 



