46 GRAMMAll OF ENTOMOLOGY. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



HISTORY OF THE BURYING-BEETLE.* 



Class Colcoptera. i Genus Necrophorus. 



Order Silphiites, | Species Vespilly. 



142. The burying-beetle is about an inch in 

 length; it is black, with two bands across its 

 back of a bright orange colour ; these bands are 

 formed by two large blotches on each of the upper 

 wings : though in such a gay dress, it is a dis- 

 gusting insect, being so foetid that the hands 

 smell for hours after handling it ; and if it crawls 

 on woollen clothes, which are not washed, the 

 smell continues for days. 



143. The burying-beetle lays its eggs in the 

 bodies of putrefying dead animals, which, when 

 practicable, it buries in the ground. In Russia, 

 where the poor people are buried but a few inches 

 below the surface of the ground, the burying- 

 beetles avail themselves of the bodies for this 



• From Rusticus' MS. ; with permission. 



