CHAPTER XII 



THE BURYING-BEETLES: EXPERIMENTS 



LET us come to the feats of reason which 

 have earned for the Necrophorus the 

 best part of his fame and, to begin with, sub- 

 mit the case related by Clairville, that of 

 the too hard soil and the call for assistance, 

 to the test of experiment. 



With this object I pave the centre of the 

 space beneath the cover, flush with the soil, 

 with a brick, which I sprinkle with a thin 

 layer of sand. This will be the soil that 

 cannot be dug. All around it, for some dis- 

 tance and on the same level, lies the loose 

 soil, which is easy to delve. 



In order to approach the conditions of 

 the anecdote, I must have a Mouse; with a 

 Mole, a heavy mass, the removal would per- 

 haps present too much difficulty. To obtain 

 one, I place my friends and neighbours under 

 requisition; they laugh at my whim but none 

 the less proffer their traps. Yet, the mo- 

 ment a very common thing is needed, it be- 

 comes rare. Defying decency in his speech, 

 after the manner of his ancestors' Latin, the 

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