270 Insect Architecture. 



by the third morning ; and on digging where it had been 

 laid, he found it buried to the depth of three inches, and 

 under it four beetles, which seemed to have been the agents in 

 this singular inhumation. 'Not perceiving anything par- 

 ticular in the mole, he buried it again ; and on examining it 

 at the end of six days, he found it swarming with maggots, 

 apparently the issue of the beetles, which M. Gleditsch now 

 naturally concluded had buried the carcase for the food of 

 their future young. To determine these points more clearly, 

 he put four of these insects into a glass vessel, half filled 

 with earth and properly secured, and upon the surface of 

 the earth two frogs. In less than twelve hours one of the 

 frogs was interred by two of the beetles ; the other two ran 

 about the whole day, as if busied in measuring the dimen- 

 sions of the remaining corpse, which on the third day was 

 also found buried. He then introduced a dead linnet. A 

 pair of the beetles were soon engaged upon the bird. They 

 began their operations by pushing out the earth from under 

 the body, so as to form a cavity for its reception ; and it 

 was curious to see the efforts which the beetles made, by 

 dragging at the feathers of the bird from below, to pull it 

 into its grave. The male, having driven the female away, 

 continued the work alone for five hours. He lifted up the 

 bird, changed its place, turned it, and arranged it in the 

 grave, and from time to time came out of the hole, mounted 

 upon it, and trod it under foot, and then retired below, and 

 pulled it down. At length, apparently wearied with this 

 uninterrupted labour, it came forth, and leaned its head upon 

 the earth beside the bird, without the smallest motion, as if to 

 rest itself, for a full 'hour, when it again crept under the 

 earth. The next day, in the morning, the bird was an inch 

 and a half under ground, and the trench remained open the 

 whole day, the corpse seeming as if laid out upon a bier, 

 surrounded with a rampart of mould. In the evening it 

 had sunk half an inch lower, and in another day the work 

 was completed, and the bird covered. M. Gleditsch con- 

 tinued to add other small dead animals, which were all 

 sooner or later buried ; and the result of his experiment 



