242 THE BURYING BEETLE. 



put them into the holJow, and they quickly hid 

 themselves among the earth. He then replaced the 

 mole as he found it, and having spread a little soft 

 earth over it, left it without looking at it again for 

 the space of six days. On the twelfth of June he 

 again look up the same carcase, which he found in 

 the highest state of corruption, swarming with small, 

 thick, whitish worms, that appeared to be the family 

 of the beetles. These circumstances induced him 

 to suppose that it was the beetles that had thus bu- 

 ried the mole, and that they had done this for the 

 sake of lodging in it their offspring. 



Mr. G. then took a glass cucurbit, and half filled 

 it with moist earth ; into this he put the four beetles 

 with their young, and they immediately concealed 

 themselves. This cucurbit, covered with a cloth, 

 was placed on the open ground, and in the course 

 of fifty days the four beetles interred the bodies of 

 four frogs, three small birds, two grasshoppers, and 

 one mole, besides the entrails of a fish, and two smali 

 pieces of the lungs of an ox. 



Of the mode in which they performed this very 

 singular operation, the following is an account : A 

 linnet that had been dead six hours was placed in 

 the middle of the cucurbit j in a few moments the 

 beetles quitted their holes, and traversed the body, 

 After a few hours, one pair of the beetles only was 

 seen about the bird, the largest of which was sus- 

 pected to be the female. They began their work 

 by hollowing out the earth from under the bird. 

 They arranged a cavity the size of the bird, by 

 pushing all around the body the earth which they 



