THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 183 



Among the Coleoptera there is one which undertakes to 

 execute an equally herculean task in a few hours. 



When a dead mole is abandoned in a field we imme- 

 diately notice the arrival of a little insect speckled with 

 black and orange, which in three or four hours effectually 

 inters the mammal. And yet its size compared to that of 

 the latter is not greater than that of man in proportion to 

 the elephant. 



Go a step further : give one of our species pickaxes and 

 wheelbarrows to break up and carry o v ff the soil, and he will 

 take more weeks to accomplish his task than 

 the burying-beetle for such is the name of 

 the insect requires hours. 



It is a maternal instinct that guides and ani- 

 mates the burier. The insect requires a dead 

 mole or some other mammal, to the shelter of 

 which it may intrust its offspring, and it only 

 inters the corpse in order to keep it fresh up to tor ' 

 the moment when its hungry larva will issue from the egg. 



The insect requires for its progeny a food they will like. 

 If we throw a frog or a bird upon the ground, it will not 

 bury either of them ; but throw out a dead mole in a gar- 

 den, where these burying-beetles are perhaps never seen, 

 and one of them, which has scented it afar off, will imme- 

 diately arrive and inter it. 



For this purpose the Necrophorus does not begin by dig- 

 ging a hole, as one might think ; it always remains unseen, 

 hidden beneath the corpse which it is burying. The work 

 goes on without being noticed, and consists in throwing 

 up on the sides of the mole the soil which was below it ; 



