his bunches of asparagus or his white-heart cabbages.

The worthy man at first laughs at my request, being greatly surprised
by the importance which I attribute to the abhorrent creature, the
Darboun; but at last he consents, not without a suspicion at the back
of his mind that I am going to make myself a wonderful flannel-lined
waist-coat with the soft, velvety skins of the Moles, something good
for pains in the back. Very well. We settle the matter. The essential
thing is that the Darbouns shall reach me.

They reach me punctually, by twos, by threes, by fours, packed in a few
cabbage-leaves, at the bottom of the gardener's basket. The worthy man
who lent himself with such good grace to my strange requirements will
never guess how much comparative psychology will owe him! In a few days
I was the possessor of thirty Moles, which were scattered here and
there, as they reached me, in bare portions of the orchard, amid the
rosemary-bushes, the arbutus-trees, and the lavender-beds.

Now it only remained to wait and to examine, several times a day, the
under-side of my little corpses, a disgusting task which any one would
avoid who had not the sacred fire in his veins. Only little Paul, of
all the household, lent me the aid of his nimble hand to seize the
fugitives. I have already stated that the entomologist has need of
simplicity of mind. In this important business of the Necrophori, my
assistants were a child and an illiterate.

Little Paul's visits alternating with mine, we had not long to wait.
The four winds of heaven bore forth in all directions the odour of the
carrion; and the undertakers hurried up, so that the experiments, begun
with four subjects, were continued with fourteen, a number not attained
during the whole of my previous searches, which were unpremeditated and
in which no bait was used as decoy. My trapper's ruse was completely
successful.

Before I report the results obtained in the cage, let us for a moment
stop to consider the normal conditions of the labours that fall to the
lot of the Necrophori. The Beetle does not select his head of game,
choosing one in proportion to his strength, as do the predatory Wasps;
he accepts it as hazard presents it to him. Among his finds there are
little creatures, such as the Shrew-mouse; animals of medium size, such
as the Field-mouse; and enormous beasts, such as the Mole, the
Sewer-rat and the Snake, any of which exceeds the powers of excavation
of a single