308 



EECREATIVE SCIENCE. 



and careful trial, in wliiclx aU the evidence 

 was most carefully sifted, to avail myself of a 

 Scottish form of verdict — " Not proven." 



I have since consulted Mr. F. Smith, of 

 the British Museum, upon this interesting 

 point of beetle economy. He is one of the most 

 active and intelligent entomologists of the 

 day, and gets his facts fresh out of the fields, 

 instead of extracting them cut and dried from 

 the book-shelves of his library. He informs 

 me that his experience accords with my 

 own ; that he is in the habit, every season, of 

 collecting this class of beetles (among others), 

 and that to facilitate the procuring of a plen- 

 tiful supply of specimens, he " baits " for 

 them after a regular manner, according to 

 the species he is seeking. For some he baits 

 with a dead frog or lizard, for others with 

 some small animal, as a mouse or mole ; for 

 others with dead fish, etc. He tells me that 

 his baits seldom or never fail ; but that in all 

 his experience among the Necrophora, he never 

 witnessed a single instance of an evident case 

 of regular " interment " taking place. They 

 doubtless burrow for the purpose of depositing 

 their eggs, and are found beneath the remains 

 of the kind described, portions of which they 

 carry off down their subterraneous passages, 

 to serve for the food of the larvse ; or, in some 

 cases, the eggs are deposited within the car- 

 cases themselves, which are rapidly consumed 

 by the larva). It is thus that they perform 

 the part of scavengers on land, as the shrimp 

 and lobster tribe do in the ocean, preserving 

 the air from the pollution of effluvia emitted 

 by decayed animal matter. 



It is very probable that in cases where the 

 carcase was small, as in the case of a mouse, 

 frog, or small bird, that instead of attempting 

 to carry it piecemeal down the burrow to 

 the imderground nest, where the eggs had 

 been deposited, the beetle may have removed 

 the earth from beneath so as to let the whole 

 of the body down to the deposit of eggs, and 

 afterwards covering it up as described. Mr. 

 Smith, however, informs me that, although 



moles are said by many authors to have 

 been interred in this manner, he has often 

 "baited" with rats of not greater dimen- 

 sions than a mole, and yet never found any 

 attempt at interment. He found beetles 

 concealed under the body during the day- 

 time, their principal work being carried on 

 in the night, when the flesh was evidently 

 carried off piecemeal down the burrows 

 formed by these beetles. 



It is conceivable that the accounts of 

 authors previously referred to may have been 

 founded upon mistakes, occurring in the fol- 

 lowing manner : — ^A frog or field-mouse may 

 have crept into some slight hollow to die, 

 and there have been discovered with the 

 beetles beneath it. A curious observer may 

 have noticed the circumstance with some in- 

 terest ; and visiting the spot some time after- 

 wards, and finding that the carcase had en- 

 tirely disappeared, may have come to the 

 conclusion that, inasmuch as it lay in the 

 hollow place before, it had since been actually 

 interred, and that the hollow was but the 

 commencement of a regular grave, the in- 

 humation havmg afterwards proceeded to 

 completion. It is true that M. Gleditsch 

 asserts that he dug on such a spot to ascer- 

 tain what had become of the object that had 

 disappeared, and found it some inches below 

 the surface ; while others have made searching 

 observations, the good faith of which one has 

 no right to doubt. But to solve the question, 

 let any of our readers try the experiment 

 for themselves. There is no dearth of the 

 beetles, for they have a mighty work to per- 

 form in cleansing the earth of its dead, and 

 prevent it from becoming a vast charnel- 

 house ; and where decaying matter is to be 

 found polluting the sweetness of the air, 

 there their keen sense of smell will quickly 

 conduct them, and its rapid removal by the 

 insatiate mandibles of their larva) will soon 

 take place. Let, therefore, the experiment be 

 tried carefully and watchfully by several ob- 

 servers together, so that each may test the 



