420 NATURE'S TEACHINGS. 



manner, so tnat not a vestige of them is to be found. Take, for 

 example, the domestic cat, and see how few bodies are found 

 of cats which have died natural deaths. 



For instance, there was my own cat " Pret," who lost his 

 life from the bites of rats. He was blind, and so lamed that 

 he could scarcely crawl. Yet, on the day of his death, he 

 three times escaped from his comfortable bed in front of the 

 fire, dragged himself through a hedge, down a steep bank, 

 across a road, up another bank, through a crevice in a park 

 fence, and curled himself up to die under a blackberry-bush. 



Perhaps it was mistaken kindness on my part, and I should 

 have acted better if I had left him to die in peace. But, 

 though I carried him back three times, and though he was 



AVAGE FUXERAL. 



quite unable to see, he contrived to slip out of the house, and 

 to find the same spot for his last resting-place on this earth. 



I have heard that some cats have been known to bury their 

 young, and Dr. J. Brown tells a most touching story of a dog 

 that committed her dead puppy to the river. 



But as to Insects, until a few years ago, no one ever dreamed 

 that the principle of burial could be found among them. "What 

 millions of insects die in every year, and how seldom is a dead 

 insect found ! Flies, gnats, and the smaller insects might 

 escape observation, but the large moths, butterflies, beetles, 

 dragon-flies, &c., are scarcely ever found dead. 



In my own neighbourhood, for example, the Stag-beetle, 

 nearly the largest and most conspicuous of British insects, 

 swarms to an almost unpleasant degree, especially in the 

 summer evenings. 



