Dec.iS^S] MOTTEK : STUDY OF THE JKaUNA OF THE GRAVE. 227 



that the Nitidulid beetle, Rhizopkagus, is attracted by the odor of the 

 corpse, and declares that this beetle never feeds upon cadavers, but 

 that it enters the grave as a parasite of the larva of another beetle 

 (Scolytid) which infests the wood of which coffins are made. In spite 

 of this high authority, I have found, in a number of cases the Ameri- 

 can cousins of this beetle feeding, beyond the peradventure of a doubt, 

 upon the decomposing soft tissues and in the cancellated bone of the 

 human cadaver. 



Another item, about which we have yet much to learn, is with re- 

 gard to the seasonal activity of a number of flies. Megnin states, and 

 he is confirmed by Webster's and by own experience, that the Phori- 

 dae have been found on bodies interred in winter as well as in summer. 

 But his conclusion, that the presence of Muscidae indicates that the 

 body in question was interred in summer and not in winter ; and 

 Johnston's and Villeneuve's conclusion, that the absence of Dipterous 

 remains points to interment in winter and not in summer, have been 

 too hastily drawn, if the study of but one hundred and fifty disinter- 

 ments in Washington afford any criterion by which to judge. For, in 

 ten of the one hundred and fifty cases, I have found the remains of a 

 number of flies (Stratiomyid, Muscid, Sepsid and Borborid) on cadav- 

 ers interred in December, January and February. 



Two important facts must be noted just here : On the one hand, 

 I have found, on looking up the recorded temperatures for several days 

 preceding death and following burial, a degree of cold wholly incom- 

 patible with insect activity above ground ; on the other hand, we not 

 infrequently have in Washington, even in mid-winter, several succes- 

 sive days of sufficient warmth to start up the incubators of the omni- 

 present fly. That the presence of certain insects on a cadaver may 

 indicate the exposure of that cadaver to a temperature favorable to the 

 functional activity of these insects, is a conclusion wholly legitimate, 

 and not without entomologic interest. Can it have any Medico-legal 

 weight ? To go before a Court of Law and to swear that because a 

 Muscid was found upon a disinterred human cadaver, that cadaver 

 might have been interred in June, but could not have been interred in 

 January, would be to fly in the face of facts and to assert a proposi- 

 tion controverted by practical experience. Be it remembered that 

 these remarks apply only to interred human cadavers, only to those 

 interred in the vicinity of Washington, and only from the limited 

 view of this field obtained from one hundred and fifty observations. 



