BURYING-BEETLES: THE BURIAL 71 



the case that these exhumations, from first to last, have 

 revealed the furry game furless and the feathered game 

 featherless, except for the tail-feathers and the pinion- 

 feathers of the wings. Reptiles and fish, on the other 

 hand, retain their scales. 



Let us return to the unrecognizable thing which was 

 once a Mole. The tit-bit lies in a spacious crypt, with 

 firm walls, a regular workshop, worthy of being the bake- 

 house of a Copris-beetle. Except for the fur, which is 

 lying in scattered flocks, it is intact. The grave-diggers 

 have not eaten into it; it is the patrimony of the sons, 

 not the provision of the parents, who, in order to sustain 

 themselves, levy at most a few mouth fuls of the ooze of 

 putrid humors. 



Beside the dish which they are kneading and protecting 

 are two Necrophori; a couple, no more. Four collabo- 

 rated in the burial. What has become of the other two, 

 both males ? I find them hidden in the soil, at a distance, 

 almost at the surface. 



This observation is not an isolated one. Whenever I 

 am present at a burial undertaken by a squad in which the 

 males, zealous one and all, predominate, I find presently, 

 when the burial is completed, only one couple in the mor- 

 tuary cellar. Having lent their assistance, the rest have 

 discreetly retired. 



These grave-diggers, in truth, are remarkable fathers. 

 They have nothing of the happy-go-lucky paternal care- 

 lessness that is the general rule among insects, which 

 plague and pester the mother for a moment with their at- 

 tentions and thereupon leave her to care for the offspring ! 



