The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles

by Jean-Henri Fabre

Now to work. The Mole lies in the centre of the enclosure. The soil, easily shifted and homogeneous, 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 sextons, 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 pronounced; the carcase oscillates, while a cushion 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 sextons, 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 passages. 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 assist 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 larvæ, 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 tit-bit lies in a spacious 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.

Beside the dish which they are kneading and protecting are two Necrophori; a couple, no more. Four collaborated in the burial. What has become of the other two, both males? I find them hidden in the soil, at a distance, almost on the surface.