BURYING BEETLES : EXPERIMENTS 95 



phori shall no longer feel her directly against their backs 

 when they push. 



A piece of wire binds together now the tarsi of a Spar- 

 row, now the heels of a Mouse and is bent, at a distance 

 of three-quarters of an inch or so, into a little ring, which 

 slips very loosely over one of the prongs of the fork, a 

 short, almost horizontal prong. To make the hanging 

 body fall, the slightest thrust upon this ring is sufficient ; 

 and, owing to its projection from the peg, it lends itself 

 excellently to the insect's methods. In short, the ar- 

 rangement is the same as it was just now, with this 

 difference, that the point of support is at a short distance 

 from the suspended animal. 



My trick, simple though it be, is fully successful. For 

 a long time the body is repeatedly shaken, but in vain; 

 the tibiae or tarsi, unduly hard, refuse to yield to the 

 patient saw. Sparrows and Mice grow dry and shriv- 

 eled, unused, upon the gibbet. Sooner in one case, later 

 in another, my Necrophori abandon the insoluble problem 

 in mechanics : to push, ever so little, the movable support 

 and so to unhook the coveted carcass. 



Curious reasoners, in faith ! If they had had, but now, 

 a lucid idea of the mutual relations between the shackled 

 limbs and the suspending peg; if they had made the 

 Mouse fall by a reasoned manoeuver, whence comes it 

 that the present artifice, no less simple than the first, is 

 to them an insurmountable obstacle ? For days and days 

 they work on the body, examine it from head to foot, 

 without becoming aware of the movable support, the 

 cause of their misadventure. In vain do I prolong my 



