342 THE BEETLES. 



insects what porters are among men. But as individuals are 

 found among porters whose intelligence raises them far above 

 the crowd of their colleagues, so among beetles are found 

 some proofs of a very far-reaching reasoning or reflective 

 power. The most well-known by its habits is the burying- 

 beetle (Necrophorus), which also manifests a small com- 

 mencement of social life, in that several of them unite 

 together to bury under the ground as food and shelter for 

 their young some dead animal, such as a mouse, a toad, a 

 mole, a bird, etc. The burial is performed because the 

 corpse, if left above-ground, would either dry up, or grow 

 rotten, or be eaten by other animals. In all these cases the 

 young would perish, whereas the dead body lying in the earth 

 and withdrawn from the outer air, lasts verv well. The 

 burying-beetles go to work in a very well-considered 

 fashion, for they scrape away the earth lying under 

 the body so that it sinks of itself deeper and deeper. When 

 it is deep enough down, it is covered over from above. If 

 the situation is stony, the beetles with united forces and 

 great efforts drag the corpse to some place more Suitable for 

 burying. They work so diligently that a mouse, for instance, 

 is buried within three hours. But they often work on for 

 days, so as to bury the body as deeply as possible. From 

 large carcases, such as those of horses, sheep, etc., they only 

 bury pieces as large as they can manage. 



Gleditsch, to whom botany and farming owe so much, 

 put four Necrophori, with their young, into a glass vessel 

 filled with earth, and found that these insects, in a space of 

 fifty days, buried no less than four frogs, three small birds, 

 two grasshoppers, and a mole, as well as the entrails of a 

 fish and two pieces of ox-lung. He saw a single beetle, 

 which he left without help, bury a dead body in the earth 

 by unceasing efforts and great sense or skill. 



An observer, to try the acuteness of this creature, tied a 

 dead mouse on a cross of wood, which would hold the mouse 

 up after the burrowing beneath it. But when the beetles 

 saw that after they had burrowed, the mouse did not fall into 

 the hole, they undermined the wood as well, until the body 

 fell in. 



Thc-y went yet more sensibly to work when a friend of 

 Gleditsch fastened a dead toad, which he wanted to dry, on a 

 stick, and put the stick in the ground. The beetles were 



