nimal degrade thee with such
denseness!

Let us now examine the mental obscurity of the Necrophori under
another aspect. My captives are not so satisfied with their sumptuous
lodging that they do not seek to escape, especially when there is a
dearth of labour, that sovran consoler of the afflicted, man or beast.
Internment within the wire cover palls upon them. So, when the Mole is
buried and everything in order in the cellar, they stray uneasily over
the trellised dome; they clamber up, come down, go up again and take
to flight, a flight which instantly becomes a fall, owing to collision
with the wire grating. They pick themselves up and begin all over
again. The sky is splendid; the weather is hot, calm and propitious
for those in search of the Lizard crushed beside the footpath. Perhaps
the effluvia of the gamy tit-bit have reached them from afar,
imperceptible to any other sense than that of the grave-diggers. My
Necrophori therefore would be glad to get away.

Can they? Nothing would be easier, if a glimmer of reason were to aid
them. Through the trelliswork, over which they have so often strayed,
they have seen, outside, the free soil, the promised land which they
want to reach. A hundred times if once have they dug at the foot of
the rampart. There, in vertical wells, they take up their station,
drowsing whole days on end while unemployed. If I give them a fresh
Mole, they emerge from their retreat by the entrance-corridor and come
to hide themselves beneath the belly of the beast. The burial over,
they return, one here, one there, to the confines of the enclosure and
disappear underground.

Well, in two and a half months of captivity, despite long stays at the
base of the trellis, at a depth of three-quarters of an inch beneath
the surface, it is rare indeed for a Necrophorus to succeed in
circumventing the obstacle, in prolonging his excavation beneath the
barrier, in digging an elbow and bringing it out on the other side, a
trifling task for these vigorous creatures. Of fourteen only one
succeeds in escaping.

A chance deliverance and not premeditated; for, if the happy event had
been the result of a mental combination, the other prisoners,
practically his equals in powers of perception, would all, from first
to last, have discovered by rational means the elbowed path leading to
the outer world; and the cage would promptly be deserted. The failure
of the great majority proves that the single fugitive was