530 THE SOCIAL LIFE OF THE LOWER ANIMALS. 
among these animals more than a specialty in the act of healing? 
We need not forget that the undertaker is a common personage in 
nature and that it is never without some profit to himself or his 
offspring that this sombre workman buries dead bodies.* There 
are even some animals not without some analogy with the shoe 
black or the scourer and which perform with a certain sort of ¢o- 
quetry the toilette of their neighbors.t 
And how shall we designate those birds known under the name 
of stercoraries which profit by the meanness of gulls to live in idle 
ness? The gulls surpass in their strength of wing ; the stercoraries 
end by making them disgorge and share with them the profits of i 
the fishery. Pursued too closely these timorous birds disgorge the 
contents of their crops to lighten themselves, as the smuggler who 7 
sees no other means of safety than in abandoning his load. We 
should not always ascribe these habits to the species as a W. 
since in the mosquito it is only one of the sexes which seeks a 
victim. In general all these animals live from hand to mouth, and 
if there are some which know how to ecbnomize, there are likewise 
those which do not ignore the advantages of a savings bank. = 
Like the crow and magpie there are some which care for the more 
row and save the overplus of the day. : 
We have spoken: this small world is not always easy to under 
“stand, and in these societies each one contributes his capital, some 
by industry, others by force or strategy, and he is more 4 oe 
tban a Robert Macaire who shares nothing at all and makes the 
most of everything not his own.§ 
Each kind of animal may have its parasite 
and each animal may have even different kinds and various € 
gories of them. 
yee 
i 
4 
i 
i 
j 
2 
g and commensal, 
this ôl 
*Among insects the Necrophori are known, as the name indicates, to fill 
Gr 
§The Dromias, Paguri, Cenobites, etc. 
