212 NETHER LOCHABER. 



dead, say, a dozen of hours ; his sleek and still glossy coat proves 

 it. This pair of beetles, then, a single pair remember, have dis- 

 covered him by an instinct and sense of smell which must be 

 wonderfully delicate and keen. They are now, as you may see, 

 busy digging under and around him, and after breakfast to-morrow 

 morning we shall come and see the result. " Suppose, papa," said 

 one of the girls, with a demure look, though with a merry twinkle 

 in her eye the while, " Suppose, sir, that this afternoon a passing 

 kestrel or owl should pick up our mole and make a meal 

 of him, what then could we see in the morning 1 " " What you 

 suggest is, no doubt, possible enough," was our rejoinder, " but we 

 believe the mole will be here to-morrow morning all the same, 

 provided you take example from the animal's proverbial wake- 

 fulness, and are up and have breakfast ready for us all in good 

 time." Meantime, that they might know it again, should they 

 ever come across it, we took up the male beetle, distinguishing 

 the sex from his being somewhat smaller and rather more active 

 than his mate, on the palm of our left hand, and with the fingers 

 of the right turned him on his back to show him properly, the 

 delicate markings of his abdomen, his muscular thorax and 

 cas-chrom shaped antennae. We soon wished we had not done it ; 

 it was a thoughtless proceeding on our part, and we should have 

 known better. We nearly fainted, and our children started back 

 in horror and alarm at the foul and foetid smell of the carrion-eating 

 Vespillo. It was horrible ; never in all our experience were our 

 olfactory nerves so offended. A pot of stale assafcetida from a 

 druggist's shop, all the proverbial many dozen stinks of Cologne in 

 combination, would have been a joke to it, a bouquet of 

 roses compared with our Vespillo. It made us quite sick 

 and ill for the moment ; but we had the presence of mind 

 to lay down our malodorous beetle beside his beloved mole 

 ere we followed our audience, who were by this time scamper- 



