BURROWING BEETLES. 171 



produce a fresh brood in the ensuing season. Our own country 

 can boast of possessing many such beetles, but in the hotter parts 

 of the world their number is quite wonderful. 



Our first example will be the well-known Sexton, or Burying 

 Beetles, some of which may be seen at work at the left hand of 

 the plate, busily engaged in burying the dead bird. There are 

 several species of Burying Beetles ; but as their habits are very 

 similar, they need not be separately described. Any one who 

 wishes to see them at work may do so by taking a dead mouse, 

 bird, or piece of meat, and laying it on a soft spot of ground. I 

 was about to add the frog to the number of objects for sepulture, 

 but have omitted that creature because the porous nature of its 

 skin causes it to dry up so rapidly, that the beetle will seldom 

 take the trouble of burying it. 



Sometimes, but very rarely, a pair of the beetles will come to 

 it by daylight, their wide wings bearing them along with great 

 speed ; but in general they prefer night as the time to begin their 

 work. If the bird be visited in the early morning, it will be no 

 longer upon the surface of the ground, but will be half sunken 

 • below it, as though the earth had given way, just as a piece of 

 dark cloth sinks into snow. If, however, the bird be removed, 

 the cause of its gradual disappearance will be seen in the form of 

 one or two beetles, sometimes black, and sometimes beautifully 

 barred with orange. Then let the bird be replaced, and a trowel 

 carefully introduced under it, so that the bird and beetles can be 

 gently transferred to a vessel of earth and then covered with a 

 glass shade. 



During the day the beetles will mostly remain quiet; but in 

 the evening they begin to be active. To dig a hole, and then to 

 drag the bird into it, would be a task far beyond their powers, 

 and they therefore employ another plan. They entirely burrow 

 beneath the bird, emerging every now and then to scrape out the 

 loose soil, walk round the bird, mount it as if to see how the work 

 is proceeding, and then disappear afresh and renew their labors. 

 Sometimes they dig rather too much on one side, and then they 

 appear sadly puzzled, running round and round the bird, getting 

 on it as if to press it down with their weight, pulling it this way 

 and that way ; and at last they do what they ought to have done 

 at first, namely, disappear under the bird and scrape away the 

 earth until the hole is large enough to allow the bird to sink into 

 the required position. 



