CHAPTER XI 



THE BURYING-BEETLES : THE BURIAL 



"DESIDE the footpath in April lies the 

 ^■^ Mole, disembowelled by the peasant's 

 spade; at the foot of the hedge the pitiless 

 urchin has stoned to death the Lizard, who 

 was about to don his green, pearl-embellished 

 costume. The passer-by has thought it a 

 meritorious deed to crush beneath his heel 

 the chance-met Adder; and a gust of wind 

 has thrown a tiny unfledged bird from its 

 nest. What will become of these little bodies 

 and so many other pitiful remnants of life? 

 They will not long offend our sense of sight 

 and smell. The sanitary officers of the 

 fields are legion. 



An eager freebooter, ready for any task, 

 the Ant is the first to come hastening and be- 

 gin, particle by particle, to dissect the corpse, 

 Soon the odour attracts the Fly, the genitrix 

 of the odious maggot. At the same time, the 

 flattened Silpha,^ the glistening, slow-trotting 

 Cellar-beetle, the Dermestes,^ powdered with 



1 Or Carrion-beetle. — Translator's Note. 



2 Or Bacon-beetle. — Translator's Note. 



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