LETTERS ON ENTOMOLOGY. 21 
other insects, which, by their multiplication, would 
become hurtful to us. 
What a scene would the face of Nature pre- 
sent, if Providence had not provided for the re- 
moval of the numberless dead carcasses which 
would strew the earth, and cause the most fatal 
and noisome effluvia ! As soon as life departs, 
the carcass is attacked by myriads of insects. 
The Histers pierce the skin ; next the flesh-flies 
cover it with their young, already hatched, and 
millions of eggs : how quickly these grubs will 
despatch it we may judge, when we consider 
that one flesh-fly will lay 20,000 eggs, and the 
grubs will devour enough in twenty-four hours 
to make their weight increase two hundredfold ! 
Can you imagine such little gluttons ? Linnaeus 
asserts, that three of these flies will devour a dead 
horse as fast as a lion would, and it seems very 
likely. The beetles come next ; wasps, hornets, 
and even ants : the horns of animals have a par- 
ticular species of insect which inhabit and feed 
upon them. 
The necrophorus respillo, or burying beetle, 
inters the bodies of small animals even of the 
size of mice and frogs. M. Gleditsch put four of 
these insects into a glass vessel half filled with 
earth and properly secured, and upon the earth 
