The Silphidce principally live upon dead animals, which 
render them of great utility in removing what might other- 
wise become offensive and noxious to mankind; and none 
are more powerful or active agents in this important service 
than the Necrophori, both in the larva and perfect states. The 
accounts of French writers respecting the Silpha Vespillo 
(the Grave-digger) are extremely curious and interesting: 
four or five of them, on finding a mole, frog, mouse, or other 
small animal, if it be not in a convenient place remove it to one 
that is more so, when they insinuate themselves under it, and 
clearing away the earth beneath, it is soon concealed from the 
eye, and in the course of 48 hours is absolutely buried to the 
depth of a foot. This operation is performed that the eggs, 
which are afterwards deposited there by the females, may 
have food when they hatch, to sustain them until they become 
pupae ; before which period it is completely devoured by them, 
neither the bones nor the skin sometimes being left. 
Some species of Necrophori are also found in Fungi: they 
are all to be met with during the spring and summer. They 
have exceedingly long wings, and carry their elytra in flight 
erect; they are very subject to be infested with acari, with 
which sometimes they are completely covered. 
N, Germanicus is very rare in this country : the fine male 
figured from the cabinet of N. A. Vigors, Esq., was taken 
many years back in Norfolk by the Rev. J. Burrell, to whose 
zeal we are indebted for a knowledge of many of our rarest 
insects. It may be at once distinguished from N. Humator , 
not only by its size and form, but by the club of its antennae 
being black, by the orange-coloured clypeus, and the furrugi- 
nous margin of the elytra. 
The genus may be thus divided : — 
A. Posterior trochanters without spines : Tibiae straight. 
# Thorax somewhat quadrate orbicular. 
1. Mortuorum Fab, Donovan’s Brit . Ins . v. 15. t. 53 7. f. 2. 
2. Vestigator Herschel Magazin fur Insectenkunde, v. 6. 
p. 274. 
3. Humator Oliv, Don . Brit, Ins. v. 15. t. 537. f. 1. 
## Thorax dilated anteriorly. 
4. Germanicus Linn. 
5. Anglicus Leach’s MSS . — Anglicanus Samouetle - — Bri- 
tannicus Wilkin’s MSS. 
B. Posterior trochanters spined : Posterior Tibiae bent. 
6. Vespillo Linn. Spinosus Kirby’s MSS.-— Don. Brit. Lis. 
v. 1. t. 23. 
Silpha bimaculata of the Entomol. Trans, (tab. 2. f. 1.) is 
considered, I believe, to be only a variety of N. Humator . 
Agaricus coccineus Bulliard, is figured with the insect. 
