114 THE LIFE AND LOVE OF THE INSECT 



guished one day in the reeking exhalations of a soil 

 saturated with rottenness. What this agglomeration of 

 millions of men cannot obtain, with all its treasures of 

 wealth and talent, the smallest hamlet possesses without 

 going to any expense or even troubling to think about it. 



Nature, so lavish of her cares in respect of rural health, 

 is indifferent to the welfare of cities, if not actively hostile 

 to it. She has created for the fields two classes of 

 scavengers, whom nothing wearies, whom nothing repels. 

 One of these — consisting of Flies, Silphids, Dermestes, 

 Necrophores — is charged with the dissection of corpses. 

 They cut and hash, they elaborate the waste matter of 

 death in their stomachs in order to restore it to life. 



A mole ripped open by the plough-share soils the path 

 with its entrails, which soon turn purple ; a snake lies 

 on the grass, crushed by the foot of a wayfarer who 

 thought, the fool, that he was performing a good work ; 

 an imfledged bird, fallen from its nest, has flattened itself 

 piteously at the foot of the tree that carried it ; thousands 

 of other similar remains, of every sort and kind, are 

 scattered here and there, threatening danger through 

 their effluvia, if nothing come to establish order. Have 

 no fear : no sooner is a corpse signalled in any direction 

 than the little undertakers come trotting along. They 

 work away at it, empty it, consume it to the bone, or 

 at least reduce it to the dryness of a mummy. In less 

 than twenty-four hours, mole, snake, bird have disap- 

 peared and the requirements of health are satisfied. 



The same zeal for their task prevails in the second class 

 of scavengers. The village hardly knows those ammonia- 

 scented refuges whither we repair, in the towns, to 

 relieve our wretched needs. A little wall no higher 

 than that, a hedge, a bush is aU that the peasant asks 



