248 INSECT ARCHITECTURE. 



To determine these points more clearly, he put four 

 of these insects into a glass vessel, half filled with 

 earth and properly secured, and upon the surface of 

 the earth two frogs. In less than twelve hours one 

 of the frogs was interred hy two of the beetles ; the 

 other two ran about the whole day, as if busied in 

 measuring the dimensions of the remaining corpse, 

 which on the third day was also found buried. He 

 then introduced a dead linnet. A pair of the beetles 

 were soon engaged upon the bird. They began their 

 operations by pushing out the earth from under the 

 body, so as to form a cavity for its reception ; and it 

 was curious to see the efforts which the beetles made 

 by dragging at the feathers of the bird from below, 

 to pull it into its grave. The male, having driven 

 the female away, continued the work alone for five 

 hours. He lifted up the bird, changed its place, 

 turned it and arranged it in the grave, and from time 

 to time came out of the hole, mounted upon it, and 

 trod it under foot, and then retired below, and pulled 

 it down. At length, apparently wearied with this 

 uninterrupted labour, it came forth, and leaned its 

 head upon the earth beside the bird without the 

 smallest motion, as if to rest itself, for a full hour, 

 when it again crept under the earth. The next day, 

 in the morning, the bird was an inch and a half under 

 ground, and the trench remained open the whole day, 

 the corpse seeming as if laid out upon a bier sur- 

 rounded with a rampart of mould. In the evening 

 it had sunk half an inch lower, and in another day 

 the work was completed, and the bird covered. M. 

 Gleditsch continued to add other small dead animals, 

 which were all sooner or later buried ; and the result 

 of his experiment was, that in fifty days four beetles 

 had interred, in the very small space of earth allotted 

 to them, twelve carcasses : viz., four frogs, three 

 small birds, two fishes, one mole, and two grasshop- 



