62 THE WONDERS OF INSTINCT 



first of the little purifiers of the fields. He is also one 

 of the most celebrated of insects in respect of his psychical 

 capacities. This undertaker is endowed, they say, with 

 intellectual faculties approaching to reason, such as are 

 not possessed by the most gifted of the Bees and Wasps, 

 the collectors of honey or game. He is honored by the 

 two following anecdotes, which I quote from Lacordaire's 

 Introduction to Entomology, the only general treatise at 

 my disposal : 



" Clairville," says the author, " records that he saw a 

 Necrophorus vespillo, who, wishing to bury a dead 

 Mouse and finding the soil on which the body lay too 

 hard, proceeded to dig a hole at some distance in soil 

 more easily displaced. This operation completed, he at- 

 tempted to bury the Mouse in this cavity, but, not succeed- 

 ing, he flew away, returning a few moments later accom- 

 panied by four of his fellows, who assisted him to move 

 the Mouse and bury it." 



In such actions, Lacordaire adds, we cannot refuse to 

 admit the intervention of reason. 



" The following case," he continues, " recorded by 



Gledditsch, has also every indication of the intervention 



of reason. One of his friends, wishing to desiccate a 



Frog, placed it on the top of a stick thrust into the 



ground, in order to make sure that the Necrophori should 



not come and carry it off. But this precaution was of no 



effect; the insects, being unable to reach the Frog, dug 



under the stick and, having caused it to fall, buried it as 



well as the body." ^ 



1 Suites d Buff on. Introduction a Ventomologie, vol. ii, pp. 460-61. 

 — Author's Note. 



