148. INDIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 
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 
Linné’s assertion, under JZ, vomitoria, that three of these flies will deyour 
a dead horse as quickly as would a lion. 
‘As soon as the various tribes of Muscide have opened the way, and 
devoured the softer parts, a whole host of beetles, Necrophori, Silphe, 
Dermestes, Choleve, and Staphylinide, actively second their labours. 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 con- 
sumed 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 ceruleus and rujficollis 
(which last is so interesting, as having been the means of saving the life of 
Latreille!), and several Nitidule? Even the horns of animals have an 
appropriate genus (Zvox) 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 Vespillo), inters the bodies of small animals, such as mice, several 
assisting each other in the work®; and those to which they commit their 
egys afford an ample supply of food to their larve.* Ants also in some 
degree emulate these burying insects, at least they will carry off the 
carcasses 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. 
Tn 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 Carabide, Silphida, antl 
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 larve 
1 See Latr. Gen. i. 275. 
4 This property in the carrion insects may be turned to a good account by the 
comparative anatomist, who has only to flay the body of one of the smaller animals, 
anoint it with honey, and bury it in an ant-hill ; and in a short time he will obtain 
a perfect skeleton, denudated of every fibril of muscle, though with the ligaments 
and cartilages untouched, 
3 In India, as we learn from Col. Hearsey, a large species of Platynotus replaces 
the Necrophori in their burying habits. 
4 Gleditsch, Abhandlungen, iii. 200. 
5 Tt is to be observed that in our cold climates, during the winter months, when 
excrement and putrescent animal matter are not so offensive, they are left to the 
action of the elements, insects being then torpid. 
6 Lundin Ann. Soc, Nat., June 1831, quoted in Westwood’s Mod, Class. of Ins. 
Mi, 230. 
