S52 AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNO. 



coui'age being connected with its supposed birth from a 

 male only ^. It was as symbolical of this last that its image 

 was worn upon the signets of the Roman soldiers ; and 

 as typical of the sun, the source of fertility, it is yet, as 

 Dr. Clarke informs us, eaten by the women to render 

 them prolific''. 



These beetles, however, in point of industry must 

 yield the palm to one {NecropJiorus Vespillo) whose sin- 

 gular history was first detailed by M. Gleditsch in the Acts 

 of the Berli?i Sociefj/ for 1752. He begins by informing 

 us that he had often remarked that dead moles when 

 laid upon the gi'ound, 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 

 liave been the agents in this singular inhumation. Not 

 perceiving any thing particular in the mole, he buried it 

 again; and on examining it at the end of six days he 

 found it swarming with maggots apparently the issue of 

 the beetles, which M. Gleditsch now naturally concluded 

 had buried the carcase for the food of their future young. 

 To determine these points more clearl}', he put four of 

 these insects into a glass vessel half filled with eartii and 

 properly secured, and upon the surface of the earth two 

 frorrs. In less than twelve hours one of the frofjs was 



^ J. Picrii Valcriani Hin-og/^p/iica, D.S-f). Mouffet, 15(?. 



'' Travels, ii. 300. Compare M. Latreille's learned Memoir en- 

 titled Des Insectes peints on sculptcs snr les Momnnens antiques de 

 I'Egi^pte. Ann. dn Mus. \8\9. 



