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Updated: June 20, 2025
It is this that warns the Saprinidæ of the fetid arum, the Silphidæ and the Necrophori of the putrid mole. The second category of odour, far superior in its action through space, escapes us completely, because we lack the essential sensory equipment. The Great Peacock moth and the Oak Eggar know it at the time of their nuptial festivities.
On many occasions and under conditions even more difficult than those presented by a stony soil, I have again and again seen isolated Necrophori exhausting themselves in striving against my artifices; yet not once did they leave their work to recruit helpers. Collaborators, it is true, did often arrive, but they were convoked by their sense of smell, not by the first possessor.
The grave-diggers under the wire cover are now seven in number, of whom three are females. All have gone to earth: some are inactive, close to the surface; the rest are busy in their crypts. The presence of the fresh corpse is promptly perceived. About seven o'clock in the morning, three Necrophori hurry up, two males and a female.
These decisive experiments, repeated under many different forms, prove that never, never in this world do the Necrophori dig, or even give a superficial scrape, at the foot of the gallows, unless the hanging body touch the ground at that point.
In this long and heavy task helpful neighbours would have been anything but unwelcome. Four other Necrophori, buried here and there under a little sand, comrades and acquaintances, helpers of the day before, were occupying the same cage; and not one of those concerned thought of summoning them to give assistance.
Before I report the results obtained in the cage, let us for a moment stop to consider the normal conditions of the labours that fall to the lot of the Necrophori. The Beetle does not select his head of game, choosing one in proportion to his strength, as do the predatory Wasps; he accepts it as hazard presents it to him.
"The following case," he continues, "recorded by Gleditsch, has also every indication of the intervention of reason. One of his friends, wishing to desiccate a Frog, placed it on the top of a stick thrust into the ground, in order to make sure that the Necrophori should not come and carry it off.
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 failure of the great majority proves that the single fugitive was simply digging at random. Circumstances favoured him; and that is all. We must not put it to his credit that he succeeded where all the others failed. We must also beware of attributing to the Necrophori a duller understanding than is usual in insect psychology.
The Mole is now fixed with a lashing of raphia fore and aft to a light horizontal cross-bar which rests on two firmly-planted forks. It is like a joint of venison on a spit, though rather oddly fastened. The dead animal touches the ground throughout the length of its body. The Necrophori disappear under the corpse, and, feeling the contact of its fur, begin to dig.
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