164 
Nature's Scavengers. 
[April, 
they decline some of the most important duties of a sca- 
venger. They eagerly attack the dung of the ruminants 
and of the Equidse. But such excrement, after all, consists 
chiefly of comminuted vegetable fibre, and — except artificially 
collected together in large quantities, where it may enter 
into fermentation or pollute rivers — it can scarcely be consi- 
dered as markedly injurious to the health of man or of other 
animals. The dung of omnivorous beasts, as the hog, 
they do not affeCt ; that of the Carnivora and of man they 
seem ordinarily to avoid. The Hybosori of Brazil, indeed, 
according to Westwood, frequent human excrement, but 
without burrowing in it, and a son of the writer once cap- 
tured Onthophagus nuchicornis on the same material in High- 
gate Wood. 
Generally speaking we are, then, warranted in concluding 
that the more offensive and dangerous any kind of excre- 
ment, the less are the Saprophagous Lamellicornes disposed 
to undertake its removal, leaving the worst cases to creatures 
who deal with them in a very unsatisfactory manner. 
Passing in review the remaining “ orders ” of inseCts, we 
find no true scavenging species in the Lepidoptera. Some of 
the most beautiful butterflies will, however, occasionally in- 
dulge in a taste for abominations. Apatura Iris will come down 
from his airy flights to sip the putrid moisture oozing from a 
dead rat or weasel. The splendid Papilios and Ornithopteras of 
warmer climates will, in like manner, stoop to human ex- 
crement and carrion. This is a curious instance of animals 
purely herbivorous in their earlier stages becoming carnivo- 
rous, or rather omnivorous, when mature. The clothes’- 
moth and its congeners, indeed, feed upon dead animal 
matter, but only upon such as does not readily enter into 
decomposition and become offensive. 
Among the Hymenoptera, the ants prey upon a great 
variety of substances, living and lifeless. They by no means 
refuse the bodies of small animals, birds, &c., which fall in 
their way, and may thus — by consuming matter that might 
otherwise be left to putrefy — rank as indirect scavengers. 
But we have never met with any authenticated case of their 
devouring matter already putrid, and certainly not excre- 
ment. Among ants we meet with the only established 
instance among the lower animals of a formal burial of the 
dead.* Wasps and hornets carry off fragments of meat 
from the butchers’ shops, but they avoid carrion. Excre- 
ment they hold in great horror, and it is interesting to watch 
* Journal of the Linnean Society, v. 217. 
