BURYING-BEETLES: THE BURIAL 69 



Now to work. The Mole lies in the center of the in- 

 closure. The soil, easily shifted and homogeneous, 

 realizes the best conditions for comfortable work. Four 

 Necrophori, three males and a female, are there with the 

 body. They remain invisible, hidden beneath the carcass, 

 which from time to time seems to return to life, shaken 

 from end to end by the backs of the workers. An ob- 

 server not in the secret would be somewhat astonished to 

 see the dead creature move. From time to time, one of 

 the sextons, almost always a male, emerges and goes the 

 rounds of the animal, which he explores, probing its vel- 

 vet coat. He hurriedly returns, appears again, once 

 more investigates and creeps back under the corpse. 



The tremors become more pronounced; the carcass 

 oscillates, while a cushion of sand, pushed outward from 

 below, grows up all about it. The Mole, by reason of 

 his own weight and the efforts of the grave-diggers, who 

 are laboring at their task beneath him, gradually sinks, 

 for lack of support, into the undermined soil. 



Presently the sand which has been pushed outward 

 quivers under the thrust of the invisible miners, slips into 

 the pit and covers the interred Mole. It is a clandestine 

 burial. The body seems to disappear of itself, as though 

 engulfed by a fluid medium. For a long time yet, until 

 the depth is regarded as sufficient, the body will continue 

 to descend. 



It is, when all is taken into account, a very simple 

 operation. As the diggers, underneath the corpse, deepen 

 the cavity into which it sinks, tugged and shaken by the 

 sextons, the grave, without their intervention, fills of 



