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Soon the odour of the corpse attracts the Fly, the genitrix of the odious maggot. At the same time, the flattened Silpha, the glistening, slow-trotting Horn-beetle, the Dermestes, powdered with snow upon the abdomen, and the slender Staphylinus, all, whence coming no one knows, hurry hither in squads, with never-wearied zeal, investigating, probing and draining the infection.
It is not probable that the plugs or piles of stones serve to conceal the burrows from scolopendras, which, according to Hoffmeister, are the bitterest enemies of worms, or from the larger species of Carabus and Staphylinus which attack them ferociously, for these animals are nocturnal, and the burrows are opened at night.
The Sarcophagi, or grey flesh flies, "with red bloodshot eyes, and the stony gaze of a knacker"; the Saprinidae, "with bodies of polished ebony like pearls of jet"; the Silpha aplata, with large and sombre wing-cases in mourning; the shiny slow-trotting Horn-beetle; the Dermestes, "powdered with snow beneath the stomach"; the slender Staphylinus; the whole fauna of the corpse, the whole horde of artisans of death, "intoxicating themselves with purulence, probing, excavating, mangling, dissecting, transmuting, and stamping out infection."
The entomology of Tallum, like its botany, was Siberian, Arctic types occurring at lower elevations than in the wetter parts of Sikkim. Predaceous genera were very rare, as Carabus and Staphylinus, so typical of boreal regions. Bupretis, Elater, and Blaps were found but rarely.
At the same time, the flattened Silpha, the glistening, slow-trotting Cellar-beetle, the Dermestes, powdered with snow upon the abdomen, and the slender Staphylinus, all, whence coming no one knows, hurry hither in squads, with never-wearied zeal, investigating, probing and draining the infection. What a spectacle, in the spring, beneath a dead Mole!
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