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If his stick was overturned, the body placed to dry beyond the assaults of the Necrophori must certainly have touched the soil: a strange precaution against robbers and the damp! We may fittingly attribute more foresight to the preparer of dried Frogs and allow him to hang the creature some inches from the ground.
The Necrophori, "the first of the tiny scavengers of the fields," bury corpses in order to establish their progeny in them; in the space of a few hours an enormous body, a mole, a water-rat, or an adder, will completely disappear, buried under the earth. The Onthophagi purify the soil, "dividing all filth into tiny crumbs, ridding the earth of its defilements."
Did the Necrophori lay it bare with the express purpose of making it fall? Or did they, on the contrary, dig at its base solely in order to bury that part of the Mole which lay on the ground? That is the question, which, for the rest, is very easy to answer.
Twice and no oftener hitherto have I found the father preoccupied by the future of his sons and labouring in order to leave them rich: it happens with certain Dung-beetles and with the Necrophori, who bury dead bodies. Scavengers and undertakers both have exemplary morals. Who would look for virtue in such a quarter?
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.
Four Necrophori, three males and a female, are there with the body. They remain invisible, hidden beneath the carcass, which from time to time seems to return to life, shaken from end to end by the backs of the workers. An observer not in the secret would be somewhat astonished to see the dead creature move.
With a thread of hemp, less easily attacked than a strip of raphia, I bind together, a little above the heels, the hind-legs of an adult Mouse; and between the legs I slip one of the prongs of the fork. To make the body fall it is enough to slide it a little way upwards; it is like a young Rabbit hanging in the front of a poulterer's shop. Five Necrophori come to inspect my preparations.
As soon as the creature is swollen with the gases of putrefaction, and the fur commences to fall from the greenish skin, a host of insects arrive Silphidæ, Dermestes, Horn-beetles, and Necrophori of which not a single specimen could ever be obtained in my garden or even in the neighbourhood without the use of such a bait.
Can one even be sure that the one to disappear returns and forms one of the band? There is nothing to indicate it; and this was the essential point which a sterling observer was bound not to neglect. Were they not rather five chance Necrophori who, guided by the smell, without any previous understanding, hastened to the abandoned Mouse to exploit her on their own account?
But, if the bone be too hard, if the body suspended be that of a Mole, an adult Mouse, or a Sparrow, the wire ligament opposes an insurmountable obstacle to the attempts of the Necrophori, who, for nearly a week, work at the hanging body, partly stripping it of fur or feather and dishevelling it until it forms a lamentable object, and at last abandon it, when desiccation sets in.
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