Al'FECTION OF INSECTS FOK THE] P. YOUNa. 353 



interred by two of the beetles: the other two ran about 

 the wliole day as if busied in measuring the dimensions 

 of the remaining corpse, which on the third day was also 

 found buried. He then introduced a dead linnet. A 

 pair of the beetles were soon engaged upon the bird. 

 They began their operations by pushing out the earth 

 from under the body so as to form a cavity for its re- 

 ception ; and it was curious to see the efforts which the 

 beetles made by dragging at the feathers of the bird from 

 below to pull it into its grave. The male having driven 

 the female away continued the work alone for five 

 hours. He lifted up the bird, changed its place, turned 

 it and arranged it in the grave, antl from time to time 

 came out of the hole, mounted upon it and trod it under 

 foot, and then retired below and pulled it down. At 

 length, apparently wearied with this uninterrupted la- 

 bour, it came forth and leaned its head upon the earth 

 beside the bird without the smallest motion as if to rest 

 itself, for a full hour, when it again crept under the 

 earth. The next day in the morning the bird was an 

 inch and a half under ground, and the trench remained 

 open the whole day, the corpse seeming as if laid out 

 upon a bier, surrounded with a rampart of mould. In 

 the evening it had sunk half an inch lower, and in an- 

 other day the work was completed and the bird covered. 

 — M. Gleditsch continued to add other small dead ani- 

 mals, which were all sooner or later buried; and the re- 

 sult of his experiment was, that in fifty days four beetles 

 had interred in the very small space of earth allotted to 

 them, twelve carcases : viz. 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. 

 In another experiment a single beetle buried a mole forty 

 VOL. I. 2 a 



