his happy coincidence. That point, which has
to be slipped along the peg in order to unhook the object, ought
really to be placed at a short distance from the Mouse, so that the
Necrophori may no longer feel her directly on their backs when they
push.

A wire binds together now the claws of a Sparrow, now the heels of a
Mouse and is bent, three-quarters of an inch farther away, into a
little ring, which slips very loosely over one of the prongs of the
fork, a short, almost horizontal prong. The least push of this ring is
enough to bring the hanging body to the ground; and because it stands
out it lends itself excellently to the insect's methods. In short, the
arrangement is the same as just now, with this difference, that the
point of support is at a short distance from the animal hung up.

My trick, simple though it be, is quite successful. For a long time
the body is repeatedly shaken, but in vain; the tibiae, the hard claws
refuse to yield to the patient saw. Sparrows and Mice grow dry and
shrivel, unused, upon the gallows. My Necrophori, some sooner, some
later, abandon the insoluble mechanical problem: to push, ever so
little, the movable support and so to unhook the coveted carcase.

Curious reasoners, in faith! If, just now, they had a lucid idea of
the mutual relations between the tied legs and the suspending peg; if
they made the Mouse fall by a reasoned manoeuvre, whence comes it that
the present artifice, no less simple than the first, is to them an
insurmountable obstacle? For days and days they work on the body,
examining it from head to foot, without noticing the movable support,
the cause of their mishap. In vain I prolong my watch; I never see a
single one of them push the support with his foot or butt it with his
head.

Their defeat is not due to lack of strength. Like the Geotrupes, they
are vigorous excavators. When you grasp them firmly in your hand, they
slip into the interstices of the fingers and plough up your skin so as
to make you quickly loose your hold. With his head, a powerful
ploughshare, the Beetle might very easily push the ring off its short
support. He is not able to do so, because he does not think of it; he
does not think of it, because he is devoid of the faculty attributed
to him, in order to support their theories, by the dangerous
generosity of the evolutionists.

Divine reason, sun of the intellect, what a clumsy slap in thy august
countenance, when the glorifiers of the a