st
needs simplicity of mind. In this important business of the
Necrophori, my assistants were a small boy 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 stop for a
moment 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 Hunting
Wasps; he accepts what chance offers. Among his finds some are small,
such as the Shrew-mouse; some medium-sized, such as the Field-mouse;
some enormous, such as the Mole, the Sewer-rat and the Snake, any of
which exceeds the digging-powers of a single sexton. In the majority
of cases, transportation is impossible, so greatly disproportioned is
the burden to the motive-power. A slight displacement, caused by the
effort of the insects' backs, is all that can possibly be effected.

Ammophila and Cerceris,[8] Sphex and Pompilus excavate their burrows
wherever they please; they carry their prey on the wing, or, if too
heavy, drag it afoot. The Necrophorus knows no such facilities in his
task. Incapable of carting the monstrous corpse, no matter where
encountered, he is forced to dig the grave where the body lies.

[Footnote 8: Cf. _The Hunting Wasps_: chaps. i. to iii.--_Translator's
Note_.]

This obligatory place of sepulture may be in stony soil or in shifting
sand; it may occupy this or that bare spot, or some other where the
grass, especially the couch-grass, plunges into the ground its
inextricable network of little cords. There is a great probability,
too, that a bristle of stunted brambles may be supporting the body at
some inches above the soil. Slung by the labourer's spade, which has
just broken his back, the Mole falls here, there, anywhere, at random;
and where the body falls, no matter what the obstacles, provided that
they be not insurmountable, there the undertaker must utilize it.

The difficulties of inhumation are capable of such variety as causes
us already to foresee that the Ne