62 THE WONDERS OF INSTINCT 



first of the little purifiers of the fields. He is also one 

 of the most celebrated of insects in respect of his psychical 

 capacities. This undertaker is endowed, they say, with 

 intellectual faculties approaching to reason, such as are 

 not possessed by the most gifted of the Bees and Wasps, 

 the collectors of honey or game. He is honored by the 

 two following anecdotes, which I quote from Lacordaire's 

 Introduction to Entomology, the only general treatise at 

 my disposal : 



" Clairville," says the author, " records that he saw a 

 Necrophorifs vespillo, who, wishing to bury a dead 

 Mouse and finding the soil on which the body lay too 

 hard, proceeded to dig a hole at some distance in soil 

 more easily displaced. This operation completed, he at- 

 tempted to bury the Mouse in this cavity, but, not succeed- 

 ing, he flew away, returning a few moments later accom- 

 panied by four of his fellows, who assisted him to move 

 the Mouse and bury it." 



In such actions, Lacordaire adds, we cannot refuse to 

 admit the intervention of reason. 



" The following case," he continues, " recorded by 

 Gledditsch, has also every indication of the intervention 

 of reason. One of his friends, wishing to desiccate a 

 Frog, placed it on the top of a stick thrust into the 

 ground, in order to make sure that the Necrophori should 

 not come and carry it off. But this precaution was of no 

 effect; the insects, being unable to reach the Frog, dug 

 under the stick and, having caused it to fall, buried it as 

 well as the body." 1 



1 Suites ft Buff on. Introduction a I'entomologie, vol. ii, pp. 460-61. 

 Author's Note. 



