deliverance of verminous old
age.

CHAPTER 6. THE BURYING-BEETLES: EXPERIMENTS.

Let us proceed to the rational prowess which has earned for the
Necrophorus the better part of his renown and, to begin with, let us
submit the case related by Clairville--that of the too hard soil and
the call for assistance--to experimental test.

With this object in view, I pave the centre of the space beneath the
cover, level with the soil, with a brick and sprinkle the latter with a
thin layer of sand. This will be the soil in which digging is
impracticable. All about it, for some distance and on the same level,
spreads the loose soil, which is easy to dig.

In order to approximate to the conditions of the little story, I must
have a Mouse; with a Mole, a heavy mass, the work of removal would
perhaps present too much difficulty. To obtain the Mouse I place my
friends and neighbours under requisition; they laugh at my whim but
none the less proffer their traps. Yet, the moment a Mouse is needed,
that very common animal becomes rare. Braving decorum in his speech,
which follows the Latin of his ancestors, the Provencal says, but even
more crudely than in my translation: "If you look for dung, the Asses
become constipated!"

At last I possess the Mouse of my dreams! She comes to me from that
refuge, furnished with a truss of straw, in which official charity
gives the hospitality of a day to the beggar wandering over the face of
the fertile earth; from that municipal hostel whence one invariably
emerges verminous. O Reaumur, who used to invite marquises to see your
caterpillars change their skins, what would you have said of a future
disciple conversant with such wretchedness as this? Perhaps it is well
that we should not be ignorant of it, so that we may take compassion on
the sufferings of beasts.

The Mouse so greatly desired is mine. I place her upon the centre of
the brick. The grave-diggers under the wire cover are now seven in
number, of whom three are females. All have gone to earth: some are
inactive, close to the surface; the rest are busy in their crypts. The
presence of the fresh corpse is promptly perceived. About seven o'clock
in the morning, three Necrophori hurry up, two males and a female. They
slip under the Mouse, who moves in jerks, a sign of the efforts of the
burying-party. An attempt is made to dig into the layer of sand which
hides the brick, so that a bank of sand accumulates about the body.

For a co