rmed.

The adults discovered in the company of their larval family, in this
putrescence which was a Rat, are all abominably verminous. So shiny
and neat in their attire, when at work under the first Moles of April,
the Necrophori, when June approaches, become odious to look upon. A
layer of parasites envelops them; insinuating itself into the joints,
it forms an almost continuous crust. The insect presents a misshapen
appearance under this overcoat of vermin, which my hair-pencil can
hardly brush aside. Driven off the belly, the horde runs round the
sufferer, perches on his back and refuses to let go.

I recognize the Beetle's Gamasus, the Tick who so often soils the
ventral amethyst of our Geotrupes. No, life's prizes do not go to the
useful. Necrophori and Geotrupes devote themselves to the general
health; and these two corporations, so interesting in their hygienic
functions, so remarkable for their domestic morals, fall victims to
the vermin of poverty. Alas, of this discrepancy between the services
rendered and the harshness of life there are many other examples
outside the world of scavengers and undertakers!

The Burying-beetles display an exemplary domestic morality, but it
does not continue till the end. In the first fortnight of June, the
family being sufficiently provided, the sextons strike work and my
cages are deserted on the surface, in spite of new arrivals of Mice
and Sparrows. From time to time, some grave-digger leaves the subsoil
and comes crawling languidly into the fresh air.

Another rather curious fact now attracts my attention. All those who
climb up from underground are maimed, with limbs amputated at the
joints, some higher up, some lower down. I see one cripple who has
only one leg left entire. With this odd limb and the stumps of the
others, lamentably tattered, scaly with vermin, he rows, as it were,
over the sheet of dust. A comrade emerges, better off for legs, who
finishes the invalid and cleans out his abdomen. Thus do my thirteen
remaining Necrophori end their days, half-devoured by their
companions, or at least shorn of several limbs. The pacific relations
of the outset are succeeded by cannibalism.

History tells us that certain peoples, the Massagetae and others, used
to kill off their old men to save them from senile misery. The fatal
blow on the hoary skull was in their eyes an act of filial piety. The
Necrophori have their share of these ancient barbarities. Full of days
an