296 AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG. 



tility, it is yet, as Dr. Clarke informs us, eaten by the women 

 to render them prolific.^ 



These beetles, however, in point of industry must yield the 

 palm to one {Necropliorus Vespillo), whose singular history 

 was first detailed by M. Gleditsch in the Acts of the Berlin 

 Society for 1752. He begins by informing us that he had 

 often remarked that dead moles when laid upon the ground, 

 especially if upon loose earth, were almost sure to disappear 

 in the course of two or three days, often of twelve hours. 

 To ascertain the cause, he placed a mole upon one of the beds 

 in his garden. It had vanished by the third morning ; and 

 on digging where it had been laid, he found it buried to the 

 depth of three inches, and under it four beetles, which seemed 

 to have been the agents in this singular inhumation. Not 

 perceiving any thing particular in the mole, he buried it 

 again ; and on examining it at the end of six days he found 

 it swarming with maggots apparently the issue of the beetles, 

 which M. Gleditsch now naturally concluded had buried the 

 carcass for the food of their future young. 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 by two of the beetles : 

 the other two ran about the whole day as if busied in mea- 

 suring 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 con- 

 tinued 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 



1 Travels, ii. 306. Compare M. Latreille's learned Memoir entitled Des 

 Insectes peints ou sculptes sur les Monumens antiques 'de VEgypte. Ann. du Mus. 

 1819; and also the Rev. F. W. Hope's Observations in Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond. ii. 

 172. 



