86 THE WONDERS OF INSTINCT 



Dragged down by his own weight, the Mole sinks into 

 the grave, but slantwise, with his head still outside, kept 

 in place by the second ligature. 



The Beetles proceed to the burial of the hinder part of 

 the Mole; they twitch and jerk it now in this direction, 

 now in that. Nothing comes of it; the thing refuses to 

 give. A fresh sortie is made by one of them to discover 

 what is happening overhead. The second ligature is 

 perceived, is severed in turn, and henceforth the work 

 proceeds as well as could be desired. 



My compliments, perspicacious cable-cutters! But I 

 must not exaggerate. The lashings of the Mole were 

 for you the little cords with which you are so familiar 

 in turfy soil. You have severed them, as well as the 

 hammock of the previous experiment, just as you sever 

 with the blades of your shears any natural filament which 

 stretches across your catacombs. It is, in your calling, 

 an indispensable knack. If you had had to learn it by 

 experience, to think it out before practising it, your race 

 would have disappeared, killed by the hesitations of its 

 apprenticeship, for the spots fertile in Moles, Frogs, Li- 

 zards and other victuals to your taste are usually grass- 

 covered. 



You are capable of far better things yet; but, before 

 proceeding to these, let us examine the case when the 

 ground bristles with slender brushwood, which holds the 

 corpse at a short distance from the ground. Will the 

 find thus suspended by the hazard of its fall remain un- 

 employed? Will the Necrophori pass on, indifferent to 

 the superb tit-bit which they see and smell a few inches 



