The Burying-Beetles: The Burial 



lower down. I see one cripple who has only 

 one leg left entire. With this odd limb and 

 the stumps of the others, lamentably tat- 

 tered, scaly with vermin, he rows, as it were, 

 over the sheet of dust. A comrade emerges, 

 better off for legs, who finishes the invalid 

 and cleans out his abdomen. Thus do my 

 thirteen remaining Necrophori end their 

 days, half-devoured by their companions, or 

 at least shorn of several limbs. The pacific 

 relations of the outset are succeeded by can- 

 nibalism. 



History tells us that certain peoples, the 

 Massagetae and others, used to kill off their 

 old men to save them from senile misery. 

 The fatal blow on the hoary skull was in 

 their eyes an act of filial piety. The Necro- 

 phori have their share of these ancient bar- 

 barities. Full of days and henceforth use- 

 less, dragging out a weary existence, they 

 mutually exterminate one another. Why 

 prolong the agony of the impotent and the 

 imbecile? 



The Massagetae might plead, as an excuse 

 for their atrocious custom, a dearth of pro- 

 visions, which is an evil counsellor; not so 

 the Necrophori, for, thanks to my generosi- 

 ty, victuals are more than plentiful, both be- 

 neath the soil and on the surface. Famine 

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