AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG. 351 



a male only^. It was as symbolical of this last that its 

 image was worn upon the signets of the Roman sol- 

 diers ; 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, F.) whose 

 singular history was first detailed by M. Gleditsch in 

 the Acts of the Berlin Societi/ 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 under 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 carcase 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 



' J. Pierii Valeriani Hieroglyphka, 93-5. Mouftet, 156. 

 " Travels, ii. 306, 



