84 THE WONDERS OF INSTINCT 



otherwise his profession would be impracticable. No end 

 is attained without the necessary means and aptitudes. 

 Besides that of the excavator, the Necrophorus certainly 

 possesses another art : the art of breaking the cables, the 

 roots, the stolons, the slender rhizomes which check the 

 body's descent into the grave. To the work of the shovel 

 and the pick must be added that of the shears. All this 

 is perfectly logical and may be foreseen with complete 

 lucidity. Nevertheless, let us invoke experiment, the best 

 of witnesses. 



I borrow from the kitchen-range an iron trivet whose 

 legs will supply a solid foundation for the engine which 

 I am devising. This is a coarse network of strips of 

 raphia, a fairly accurate imitation of the network of 

 couch-grass roots. The very irregular meshes are no- 

 where wide enough to admit of the passage of the creature 

 to be buried, which in this case is a Mole. The trivet 

 is planted with its three feet in the soil of the cage; its 

 top is level with the surface of the soil. A little sand 

 conceals the meshes. The Mole is placed in the center; 

 and my squad of sextons is let loose upon the body. 



Without a hitch the burial is accomplished in the course 

 of an afternoon. The hammock of raphia, almost equiv- 

 alent to the natural network of couch-grass turf, scarcely 

 disturbs the process of inhumation. Matters do not go 

 forward quite so quickly; and that is all. No attempt is 

 made to shift the Mole, who sinks into the ground where 

 he lies. The operation completed, I remove the trivet. 

 The network is broken at the spot where the corpse lay. 



