INDIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 183 



Providence in fitting them for the part they are destined to act : for if a 

 longer time was required for their growth, their food would not be a fit 

 aliment for them, or they would be too long in removing the nuisance it is 

 given in charge to them to dissipate. Thus we see there was some 

 ground for Linne's assertion under M. vomitoria, that three of these flies 

 will devour a dead horse as quickly as would a lion. 



As soon as the various tribes of MuscidcB have opened the way, and 

 devoured the softer parts, a whole host of beetles, ISiecrophori, Silphce, 

 Dennestcs, Cholera, and Sfaphylinida, actively second their labors. 

 Wasps and hornets also come in for their portion of the spoil ; and even 

 ants, which prowl every where, rival their giant competitors in the quantity 

 consumed by them ; so that in no very long time, especially in warm 

 climates, the muscular covering is removed from the skeleton, which is 

 then cleansed from all remains of it by the little Corynetes cariiJeus and 

 ruJicoUis (which last is so interesting, as having been the means of saving 

 the life of Latreille^), and several Nitidulcer Even the horns of animals 

 have an appropriate genus [Trox) which inhabits them, and feeds upon 

 their contents. And not only are large animals thus disposed of, even the 

 smallest are not suffered long to annoy us. The burying beetle (^Necro- , 

 phorus Tespillo) inters the bodies of small animals, such as mice, several 

 assisting each other in the work"^ ; and those to which they commit their 

 eggs afford an ample supply of food to their larvae.** Ants also in some 

 degree emulate these burying insects, at least they will carry off the car- 

 casses of insects into their nests ; and I once saw some of the horse-ants 

 dragging away a half-dead snake of about the size of a goose-quill.^ In 

 fact in the extensive plains of South America and other tropical regions, 

 where ants are both larger and far more numerous than with us, M. Lund 

 conceives that they take the place of the Carabida, Silphida, and other 

 carnivorous tribes of more temperate climes, there rarely met with, in 

 removing all putrefying animal matter.^ Some insects will even attack 

 living animals, and make them their prey, thus contributing to keep them 

 within due limits. The common earth-worm is attacked and devoured by 

 a centipede {Geophilus electricus). Mr. Sheppard saw one attack a worm 

 ten times its own size, round which it twisted itself like a serpent, and 

 which it finally mastered and devoured. 



But insects are not only useful in removing and dissipating dead animal 

 matter ; they are also intrusted with a similar office with respect to the 

 vegetable kingdom. The interior of rotten trees is inhabited by the larva; 

 of a particular kind of crane-fly with pectinated antennae (^Ctenophora'^), 

 and other insects, which there find an appropriate nutriment ; and a similar 



» See Latr. Gen. i. 275. 



* This property in the carrion insects may be turned to a good account by the compara- 

 tive anatomist, who has only to flay the body of one of the smaller animals, anoint il with 

 honey, and bury it in an ant-hill ; and in a short time he will obtain a perfect skeleton, 

 denudaled of every fibril of muscle, though with the ligaments and cartilages untouched. 



' In India, as we learn from Col. Hearsey, a large species of Platynotus replaces the 

 Necrophori in their burying habits. 



* Gleditsch, Abhmidlungen, iii. 200. 



* It is to be observed that in our cold climates, during the winter months, wlien excre- 

 ment and putrescent animal matter are not so offensive, they are left to the action of the 

 elements, insects being then torpid. 



« Lund in Ann. Sc. Nat. June 1831, quoted in Westwood's Mod. Class, of Ins. ii. 230. 

 ' Curtis, Brit. Ent. t. 5. 



