234 AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG. 



they rolled the pellets containing their eggs from sunrise to sunset every 

 day, for twenty-eight days without intermission^, &c. It is one of this 

 tribe of beetles (^S*. sacer) whose image is so often met with amongst the 

 hieroglyphics of the Egyptians, with whom it was a symbol of the world, 

 of the sun, and of a courageous warrior. Of the world, as P. Valerianus 

 supposes, on account of the orbicular form of its pellets of dung, and the 

 notion of their being rolled from sunrise to sunset ; of the sun, because of 

 the angular projections from its head resembling rays, and the thirty joints 

 of the six tarsi of its feet answering to the days of the month ; and of a 

 warrior, from the idea of manly courage 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 (^Necrophorus Vespillo), whose singular history was first detailed by 

 M. Gleditsch in the Acts of the Berlin Society for 1752. He begins by 

 informing us that he had often remarked that dead moles when laid upon 

 the ground, 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 un<ler it four beetles, 

 which seemed to have 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 carcass for the food of their future young. To 

 determine these points more clearly, he put four of these insects into a 

 glass vessel half filled with earth and properly secured, and upon the 

 surface of the earth two frogs. In less than twelve hours one of the frogs 

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

 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 reception ; 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, and 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 labor, 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 



> Mouffet, 153. 



* J. Pierii Valeriani Hieroglijphica, 93 — 95. Mouffet, 156. 



' Travels, n 306. Compare M. Latreille's learned Memoir entitled Des Insectes peints ou 

 sculptes sur les Manumens antiques de VEgypte. Ann. du Mas. 1819 j and also the Rev. F. 

 W. Hope's Observations in Trans. Ent. Soc. Land. ii. 172. 



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