AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG. 137 



nipples seven weeks, when their eyes are for the first time 

 opened; they then begin to quit the pouch, — a sort of second 

 birth; and afterwards return to it at intervals for nourish- 

 ment and protection. 



The period of gestation in the kangaroo is not yet ascer- 

 tained, but the young is received into the marsupium or ex- 

 ternal pouch when of very small size. Sir Everard Home 

 found one attached to the nipple, which weighed twenty-one 

 grains, and measured an inch without the tail ; its fore-paws 

 were tolerably well formed, and double the length of the hind 

 ones. " When the young," he observes, " is first attached to 

 the nipple, the face appears to be wanting, except a round 

 hole at the muzzle, to which the nipple is applied and adheres ; 

 soon after, the lips and jaws grow upon the nipple, till at last 

 nearly half an inch of its length is inclosed in the mouth. " 



According to some notes made by a keeper on a kangaroo 

 which belonged to the Duchess of Berri, it would appear that 

 gestation had continued from the 6th of May to the 6th of Oc- 

 tober, viz. five months ; and that the young one remained in 

 the pouch till the January following, when it quitted the nip- 

 ple and came out. The exact period, however, of gestation in 

 the kangaroo, the form and condition of the embryo at birth, 

 and the precise manner in which it passes or is conveyed into 

 the pouch, are points which still remain to be decided. 



AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG. 



The affection displayed by insects for their young, and the 

 industry and perseverance with which they labour to provide 

 for them, have frequently been the subject of interesting obser- 

 vations and remarks by different naturalists. 



This subject has been very ably treated in that well-known 

 and valuable work the e Introduction to Entomology ' of 

 Kirby and Spence; and amongst other instances they refer to 

 an account of a singular species of the beetle {Necrophorus 

 Fespillo, F.) first noticed by M. Gleditsch in the Acts of the 

 Berlin Society for 1752. He begins by stating that he had 

 often remarked that dead moles, when laid upon the ground, 

 especially if upon loose earth, were almost sure to disappear 

 in the course of two or three days, often of twelve hours. To 

 ascertain the cause, he placed a mole upon one of the beds in 

 his garden. It had vanished by the third morning ; and on 

 digging where it had been laid, he found it buried to the depth 

 of three inches, and under it, four beetles which seemed to 

 have been the agents in this singular inhumation. Not per- 

 ceiving anything particular in the mole, he buried it again f 



