THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 193 



and bid him bury an elephant or rhinoceros; he would 

 spend the best part of his life in trjdng. His nails woidd 

 be worn out before the pit for the colossus was finished, 

 and all his strength would be exhausted to no purpose in 

 order to place it there and cover it with earth. 



Among the Coleoptera there is one which undertakes 

 to execute an equally herculean task in a few hours. 



When a dead mole is abandoned in a field we immedi- 

 ately notice the arrival of a little insect speckled with black 



115. The Buryirig-beetle— iVccroiJ/iorus scpvltor, Necrophoi-us Yispilto. 



and orange, which in three or four hours effectually inters 

 the mammal. And yet its size compared to that of the 

 latter is not greater than that of man in proportion to the 

 elephant. 



Go a step further, give one of our species pickaxes 

 and wheelbarrows to break up and carry ofiT the soil, and 

 he will take more weeks to accomplish his task than the 

 l)urying-beetle, for such is the name of the insect, requires 

 hours. 



It is a maternal instinct that guides and animates the 

 burier. A dead mole or some other mammal is necessary, 

 in (jrder that it may intrust its offspring to such a shelter, 

 and it only inters the corpse in order to keep it fresh 

 up to the moment when its devouring larva will issue from 

 the egg. 



The insect recjuires for them a food they will like. If 



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