BURYING-BEETLES: THE BURIAL 65 



in a better position than any one else to procure for me 

 that which I regard for the moment as more precious 

 than his bunches of asparagus or his white-heart cab- 



The worthy man at first laughs at my request, being 

 greatly surprised by the importance which I attribute to 

 the abhorrent creature, the Darboun; but at last he con- 

 sents, not without a suspicion at the back of his mind 

 that I am going to make myself a wonderful flannel-lined 

 waistcoat with the soft, velvety skins of the Moles, some- 

 thing good for pains in the back. Very well. We settle 

 the matter. The essential thing is that the Darbouns 

 shall reach me. 



They reach me punctually, by twos, by threes, by 

 fours, packed in a few cabbage-leaves, at the bottom of 

 the gardener's basket. The worthy man who lent him- 

 self with such good grace to my strange requirements 

 will never guess how much comparative psychology will 

 owe him! In a few days I was the possessor of thirty 

 Moles, which were scattered here and there, as they 

 reached me, in bare portions of the orchard, amid the 

 rosemary-bushes, the arbutus-trees, and the lavender- 

 beds. 



Now it only remained to wait and to examine, several 

 times a day, the under-side of my little corpses, a dis- 

 gusting task which any one would avoid who had not 

 the sacred fire in his veins. Only little Paul, of all the 

 household, lent me the aid of his nimble hand to seize 

 the fugitives. I have already stated that the entomologist 

 has need of simplicity of mind. In this important busi- 



