Dung-Beette. 271 



was, that in fifty days four beetles had interred, in the very 

 small space of earth allotted to them, twelve carcases, viz., 

 four frogs, three small birds, two fishes, one mole, and two 

 grasshoppers, besides the entrails of a fish, and two morsels 

 of the lungs of an ox. In another experiment, a single 

 beetle buried a mole, forty times its own bulk and weight, in 

 two days."* 



In the summer of 1826, we found on Putney Heath, in 

 Surrey, four of these beetles, hard at work in burying a dead 

 crow, precisely in the manner described by M. Gleditsch. 

 (J. E.) 



DUNG-BEETLE. 



A still more common British insect, the dorr, clock, or 

 dung-beetle (Geotrupes stercorarius), uses different materials 

 for burying along with its eggs. "It digs," to use the 

 words of Kirby and Spence, " a deep cylindrical hole, and 

 carrying down a mass of the dung to the bottom, in it 

 deposits its eggs. And many of the species of the genus 

 Ateuclms roll together wet dung into round pellets, deposit 

 an egg in the midst of each, and when dry push them back- 

 wards, by their hind feet, to holes of the surprising depth of 

 three feet, which they have previously dug for their re- 

 ception, and which are often several yards distant. The 

 attention of these insects to their eggs is so remarkable, that 

 it was observed in the earliest ages, and is mentioned by 

 ancient writers, but with the addition of many fables ; as that 

 they were all of the male sex ; that they became young again 

 every year ; and that they rolled the pellets containing their 

 eggs from sunrise to sunset every day, for twenty-eight days, 

 without intermission."! 



" We frequently notice in our evening walks," says Mr. 

 Knapp, " the murmuring passage, and are often stricken by 

 the heedless flight of the great dorr-beetle (Geotrupes stereo- 

 rarius), clocks, as the boys call them. But this evening my 



* Act. Acad. Berolin. 1752, et Gleditsch, Phys. Botan., quoted by Kirby 

 and Spence, ii. 353. 



f Moufet, 153. Kirby and Spence, ii. 350. 



