The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles Part 14

[Footnote 1: Or Carrion-beetle.--_Translator's Note_.]

[Footnote 2: Or Bacon-beetle.--_Translator's Note_.]

[Footnote 3: Or Rove-beetle.--_Translator's Note_.]

What a spectacle, in the spring, beneath a dead Mole! The horror of this laboratory is a beautiful sight for one who is able to observe and to meditate. Let us overcome our disgust; let us turn over the unclean refuse with our foot. What a swarming there is beneath it, what a tumult of busy workers! The Silphae, with wing-cases wide and dark, as though in mourning, flee distraught, hiding in the cracks in the soil; the Saprini,[4] of polished ebony which mirrors the sunlight, jog hastily off, deserting their workshop; the Dermestes, of whom one wears a fawn-coloured tippet flecked with white, seek to fly away, but, tipsy with the putrid nectar, tumble over and reveal the immaculate whiteness of their bellies, which forms a violent contrast with the gloom of the rest of their attire.

[Footnote 4: The Saprinus is a very small carnivorous Beetle. Cf. _The Life of the Fly_: chap. xvi.--_Translator's Note_.]

What were they doing there, all these feverish workers? They were making a clearance of death on behalf of life. Transcendent alchemists, they were transforming that horrible putrescence into a living and inoffensive product. They were draining the dangerous corpse to the point of rendering it as dry and sonorous as the remains of an old slipper hardened on the refuse-heap by the frosts of winter and the heats of summer. They were working their hardest to render the carrion innocuous.

Others will soon put in their appearance, smaller creatures and more patient, who will take over the relic and exploit it ligament by ligament, bone by bone, hair by hair, until the whole has been restored to the treasury of life. All honour to these purifiers! Let us put back the Mole and go our way.

Some other victim of the agricultural labours of spring, a Shrew-mouse, Field-mouse, Mole, Frog, Adder, or Lizard, will provide us with the most vigorous and famous of these expurgators of the soil.

This is the Burying-beetle, the Necrophorus, so different from the cadaveric mob in dress and habits. In honour of his exalted functions he exhales an odour of musk; he bears a red tuft at the tip of his antennae; his breast is covered with nankeen; and across his wing-cases he wears a double, scalloped scarf of vermillion. An elegant, almost sumptuous costume, very superior to that of the others, but yet lugubrious, as befits your undertaker's man.

He is no anatomical dissector, cutting his subject open, carving its flesh with the scalpel of his mandibles; he is literally a grave-digger, a s.e.xton. While the others--Silphae, Dermestes, Cellar-beetles--gorge themselves with the exploited flesh, without, of course, forgetting the interests of the family, he, a frugal eater, hardly touches his find on his own account. He buries it entire, on the spot, in a cellar where the thing, duly ripened, will form the diet of his larvae. He buries it in order to establish his progeny.

This h.o.a.rder of dead bodies, with his stiff and almost heavy movements, is astonis.h.i.+ngly quick at storing away wreckage. In a s.h.i.+ft of a few hours, a comparatively enormous animal, a Mole, for instance, disappears, engulfed by the earth. The others leave the dried, emptied carca.s.s to the air, the sport of the winds for months on end; he, treating it as a whole, makes a clean job of things at once. No visible trace of his work remains but a tiny hillock, a burial-mound, a tumulus.

With his expeditious method, the Necrophorus is the first of the little purifiers of the fields. He is also one of the most celebrated of insects in respect of his psychical capacities. This undertaker is endowed, they say, with intellectual faculties approaching to reason, such as are not possessed by the most gifted of the Bees and Wasps, the collectors of honey or game. He is honoured by the two following anecdotes, which I quote from Lacordaire's[5] _Introduction a l'entomologie_, the only general treatise at my disposal:

"Clairville," says the author, "reports that he saw a _Necrophorus vespillo_, who, wis.h.i.+ng to bury a dead Mouse and finding the soil on which the body lay too hard, went to dig a hole at some distance, in soil more easily displaced. This operation completed, he attempted to bury the Mouse in the cavity, but, not succeeding, he flew away and returned a few moments later, accompanied by four of his fellows, who a.s.sisted him to move the Mouse and bury it."

[Footnote 5: Jean Theodore Lacordaire (1801-1870), author of _Genera des coleopteres_ (1854-1876) and of the work quoted above (1837-1839).--_Translator's Note_.]

In such actions, Lacordaire adds, we cannot refuse to admit the intervention of reason.

"The following case," he continues, "recorded by Gleditsch,[6] has also every indication of the intervention of reason. One of his friends, wis.h.i.+ng 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. But this precaution was of no effect; the insects, being unable to reach the Frog, dug under the stick and, having caused it to fall, buried it as well as the body."[7]

[Footnote 6: Johann Gottlieb Gleditsch (1714-1786), the German botanist.--_Translator's Note_.]

[Footnote 7: _Suites a Buffon. Introduction a l'entomologie_, vol.

ii., pp. 460-61.--_Author's Note_.]

To grant, in the intellect of the insect, a lucid understanding of the relations between cause and effect, between the end and the means, is to make a statement of serious import. I know of scarcely any more suited to the philosophical brutalities of my time. But are these two anecdotes really true? Do they involve the consequences deduced from them? Are not those who accept them as sound evidence just a little too simple?

To be sure, simplicity is needed in entomology. Without a good dose of this quality, a mental defect in the eyes of practical folk, who would busy himself with the lesser creatures? Yes, let us be simple, without being childishly credulous. Before making insects reason, let us reason a little ourselves; let us, above all, consult the experimental test. A fact gathered at random, without criticism, cannot establish a law.

I do not propose, O valiant grave-diggers, to depreciate your merits; such is far from being my intention. I have that in my notes, on the other hand, which will do you more honour than the story of the gibbet and the Frog; I have gleaned, for your benefit, examples of prowess which will shed a new l.u.s.tre upon your reputation.

No, my intention is not to belittle your renown. Besides, it is not the business of impartial history to maintain a given thesis; it follows facts. I wish simply to question you upon the power of logic attributed to you. Do you or do you not enjoy gleams of reason? Have you within you the humble germ of human thought? That is the problem before us.

To solve it we will not rely upon the accidents which good fortune may now and again procure for us. We must employ the breeding-cage, which will permit of a.s.siduous visits, continuous enquiry and a variety of artifices. But how to stock the cage? The land of the olive-tree is not rich in Necrophori. To my knowledge it possesses only a single species, _N. vestigator_, HERSCH.; and even this rival of the grave-diggers of the north is pretty scarce. The discovery of three or four in the spring was as much as my hunting-expeditions yielded in the old days. This time, if I do not resort to the ruses of the trapper, I shall obtain no more than that, whereas I stand in need of at least a dozen.

These ruses are very simple. To go in search of the s.e.xton, who exists only here and there in the country-side, would be nearly always a waste of time; the favourable month, April, would be past before my cage was suitably stocked. To run after him is to trust too much to accident; so we will make him come to us by scattering in the orchard an abundant collection of dead Moles. To this carrion, ripened by the sun, the insect will not fail to hasten from the various points of the horizon, so accomplished is he in detecting such a delicacy.

I make an arrangement with a gardener in the neighbourhood, who, two or three times a week, makes up for the penury of my two acres of stony ground by providing me with vegetables raised in a better soil.

I explain to him my urgent need of Moles in unlimited numbers.

Battling daily with trap and spade against the importunate excavator who uproots his crops, he is in a better position than any one to procure for me what I regard for the moment as more precious than his bunches of asparagus or his white-heart cabbages.

The worthy man at first laughs at my request, being greatly surprised by the importance which I attribute to the abhorrent animal, the _Darboun_; but at last he consents, not without a suspicion at the back of his mind that I am going to make myself a gorgeous winter waist-coat with the soft, velvety skins of the Moles. A thing like that must be good for pains in the back. Very well. We settle the matter. The essential thing is that the _Darbouns_ reach me.

They reach me punctually, by twos, by threes, by fours, packed in a few cabbage-leaves, at the bottom of the gardener's basket. The excellent fellow who lent himself with such good grace to my strange wishes will never guess how much comparative psychology will owe him!

In a few days I was the possessor of thirty Moles, which were scattered here and there, as they reached me, in bare spots of the orchard, among the rosemary-bushes, the strawberry-trees and the lavender-beds.

Now it only remained to wait and to examine, several times a day, the under-side of my little corpses, a disgusting task which any one would avoid whose veins were not filled with the sacred fire of enthusiasm.

Only little Paul, of all the household, lent me the aid of his nimble hand to seize the fugitives. I have already said that the entomologist needs simplicity of mind. In this important business of the Necrophori, my a.s.sistants were a small boy and an illiterate.

Little Paul's visits alternating with mine, we had not long to wait.

The four winds of heaven bore forth in all directions the odour of the carrion; and the undertakers hurried up, so that the experiments, begun with four subjects, were continued with fourteen, a number not attained during the whole of my previous searches, which were unpremeditated and in which no bait was used as decoy. My trapper's ruse was completely successful.

Before I report the results obtained in the cage, let us stop for a moment 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 Hunting Wasps; he accepts what chance offers. Among his finds some are small, such as the Shrew-mouse; some medium-sized, such as the Field-mouse; some enormous, such as the Mole, the Sewer-rat and the Snake, any of which exceeds the digging-powers of a single s.e.xton. In the majority of cases, transportation is impossible, so greatly disproportioned is the burden to the motive-power. A slight displacement, caused by the effort of the insects' backs, is all that can possibly be effected.

Ammophila and Cerceris,[8] Sphex and Pompilus excavate their burrows wherever they please; they carry their prey on the wing, or, if too heavy, drag it afoot. The Necrophorus knows no such facilities in his task. Incapable of carting the monstrous corpse, no matter where encountered, he is forced to dig the grave where the body lies.

[Footnote 8: Cf. _The Hunting Wasps_: chaps. i. to iii.--_Translator's Note_.]

This obligatory place of sepulture may be in stony soil or in s.h.i.+fting sand; it may occupy this or that bare spot, or some other where the gra.s.s, especially the couch-gra.s.s, plunges into the ground its inextricable network of little cords. There is a great probability, too, that a bristle of stunted brambles may be supporting the body at some inches above the soil. Slung by the labourer's spade, which has just broken his back, the Mole falls here, there, anywhere, at random; and where the body falls, no matter what the obstacles, provided that they be not insurmountable, there the undertaker must utilize it.

The difficulties of inhumation are capable of such variety as causes us already to foresee that the Necrophorus cannot employ fixed methods in performing his task. Exposed to fortuitous hazards, he must be able to modify his tactics within the limits of his modest discernment. To saw, to break, to disentangle, to lift, to shake, to displace: these are so many means which are indispensable to the grave-digger in a predicament. Deprived of these resources, reduced to uniformity of procedure, the insect would be incapable of pursuing its calling.

We see at once how imprudent it would be to draw conclusions from an isolated case in which rational co-ordination or premeditated intention might appear to play its part. Every instinctive action no doubt has its motive; but does the animal in the first place judge whether the action is opportune? Let us begin by a careful consideration of the creature's labours; let us support each piece of evidence by others; and then we shall perhaps be able to answer the question.

First of all, a word as to diet. A general scavenger, the Burying-beetle refuses no sort of cadaveric putrescence. All is good to his senses, feathered game or furry, provided that the burden do not exceed his strength. He exploits the batrachian or the reptile with no less animation. He accepts without hesitation extraordinary finds, probably unknown to his race, as witness a certain Goldfish, a red Chinese Carp, whose body, placed in one of my cages, was forthwith considered an excellent t.i.t-bit and buried according to the rules. Nor is butcher's meat despised. A mutton-cutlet, a strip of beef-steak, in the right stage of maturity, disappeared beneath the soil, receiving the same attentions as those lavished on the Mole or the Mouse. In short, the Necrophorus has no exclusive preferences; anything putrid he conveys underground.

The maintenance of his industry, therefore, presents no sort of difficulty. If one kind of game be lacking, some other, the first to hand, will very well replace it. Nor is there much trouble in fixing the site of his industry. A capacious wire-gauze cover, resting on an earthen pan filled to the brim with fresh, heaped sand, is sufficient.

To obviate criminal attempts on the part of the Cats, whom the game would not fail to tempt, the cage is installed in a closed gla.s.s-house, which in winter shelters the plants and in summer serves as an entomological laboratory.

Now to work. The Mole lies in the centre of the enclosure. The soil, easily s.h.i.+fted and h.o.m.ogeneous, realizes the best conditions for comfortable work. Four Necrophori, three males and a female, are there with the body. They remain invisible, hidden beneath the carcase, 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. From time to time, one of the s.e.xtons, almost always a male, comes out and walks round the animal, which he explores, probing its velvet coat. He hurriedly returns, appears again, once more investigates and creeps back under the corpse.

The tremors become more p.r.o.nounced; the carcase oscillates, while a cus.h.i.+on of sand, pushed out from below, grows up all around it. The Mole, by reason of his own weight and the efforts of the grave-diggers, who are labouring at their task underneath, gradually sinks, for lack of support, into the undermined soil.

Presently the sand which has been pushed out quivers under the thrust of the invisible miners, slips into the pit and covers the interred Mole. It is a clandestine burial. The body seems to disappear of itself, as though engulfed by a fluid medium. For a long time yet, until the depth is regarded as sufficient, the body will continue to descend.

It is, on the whole, a very simple operation. As the diggers below deepen the cavity into which the corpse, shaken and tugged above, sinks without the direct intervention of the s.e.xtons, the grave fills of itself by the mere slipping of the soil. Stout shovels at the tips of their claws, powerful backs, capable of creating a little earthquake: the diggers need nothing more for the practice of their profession. Let us add--for this is an essential point--the art of continually jerking the body, so as to pack it into a lesser volume and make it glide through difficult pa.s.sages. We shall soon see that this art plays a leading part in the industry of the Necrophori.

Although he has disappeared, the Mole is still far from having reached his destination. Let us leave the undertakers to finish their job.

What they are now doing below ground is a continuation of what they did on the surface and would teach us nothing new. We will wait for two or three days.

The moment has come. Let us inform ourselves of what is happening down there. Let us visit the place of corruption. I shall never invite anybody to the exhumation. Of those about me, only little Paul has the courage to a.s.sist me.

The Mole is a Mole no longer, but a greenish horror, putrid, hairless, shrunk into a sort of fat, greasy rasher. The thing must have undergone careful manipulation to be thus condensed into a small volume, like a fowl in the hands of the cook, and, above all, to be so completely deprived of its furry coat. Is this culinary procedure undertaken in respect of the larvae, which might be incommoded by the fur? Or is it just a casual result, a mere loss of hair due to putridity? I am not certain. But it is always the case that these exhumations, from first to last, have revealed the furry game furless and the feathered game featherless, except for the pinion- and tail-feathers. Reptiles and fish, on the other hand, retain their scales.

Let us return to the unrecognizable thing that was once a Mole. The t.i.t-bit lies in a s.p.a.cious crypt, with firm walls, a regular workshop, worthy of being the bake-house of a Copris. Except for the fur, which lies scattered about in flocks, it is intact. The grave-diggers have not eaten into it: it is the patrimony of the sons, not the provision of the parents, who, to sustain themselves, levy at most a few mouthfuls of the ooze of putrid humours.