The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles

by Jean-Henri Fabre

Well done, my undertakers! I expected no less of your skill and tact. You foiled the experimenter's wiles by employing the resources which you use against natural obstacles. With mandibles for shears, you patiently cut my strings as you would have gnawed the threads of the grass-roots. This is meritorious, if not deserving of exceptional glorification. The shallowest of the insects that work in earth would have done as much if subjected to similar conditions.

Let us ascend a stage in the series of difficulties. The Mole is now fixed by a strap of raffia fore and aft to a light horizontal cross-bar resting on two firmly-planted forks. It is like a joint of venison on the spit, eccentrically 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. The grave grows deeper and an empty space appears; but the coveted object does not descend, retained as it is by the cross-bar which the two forks keep in place. The digging slackens, the hesitations become prolonged.

However, one of the grave-diggers climbs to the surface, wanders over the Mole, inspects him and ends by perceiving the strap at the back. He gnaws and ravels it tenaciously. I hear the click of the shears that completes the rupture. Crack! The thing is done. Dragged down by his own weight, the Mole sinks into the grave, but slantwise, with his head still outside, kept in place by the second strap.

The Beetles proceed with the burial of the hinder part of the Mole; they twitch and jerk it now in this direction, now in that. Nothing comes of it; the thing refuses to give. A fresh sortie is made by one of them, to find out what is happening overhead. The second strap is perceived, is severed in turn; and henceforth the work goes on as well as could be wished.

My compliments, perspicacious cable-cutters! But I must not exaggerate. The Mole's straps were for you the little cords with which you are so familiar in turfy soil. You broke them, as well as the hammock of the previous experiment, just as you sever with the blades of your shears any natural thread stretching across your catacombs. It is an indispensable trick of your trade. If you had had to learn it by experience, to think it out before practising it, your race would have disappeared, killed by the hesitations of its apprenticeship, for the spots prolific of Moles, Frogs, Lizards and other viands to your taste are usually covered with grass.

You are capable of much better things still; but, before setting forth these, let us examine the case when the ground bristles with slender brushwood, which holds the corpse at a short distance from the ground. Will the find thus hanging where it chances to fall remain unemployed? Will the Necrophori pass on, indifferent to the superb morsel which they see and smell a few inches above their heads, or will they make it drop from its gibbet?

Game does not abound to such a point that it can be despised if a few efforts will obtain it. Before I see the thing happen, I am persuaded that it will fall, that the Necrophori, often confronted with the difficulties of a body not lying on the soil, must possess the instinct to shake it to the ground. The fortuitous support of a few bits of stubble, of a few interlaced twigs, so common in the fields, cannot put them off. The drop of the suspended body, if placed too high, must certainly form part of their instinctive methods. For the rest, let us watch them at work.

I plant in the sand of the cage a meagre tuft of thyme. The shrub is at most some four inches in height. In the branches I place a Mouse, entangling the tail, the paws and the neck among the twigs to increase the difficulty. The population of the cage now consists of fourteen Necrophori and will remain the same until the close of my investigations. Of course they do not all take part simultaneously in the day's work: the majority remain underground, dozing or occupied in setting their cellars in order. Sometimes only one, often two, three or four, rarely more, busy themselves with the corpse which I offer them. To-day, two hasten to the Mouse, who is soon perceived overhead on the tuft of thyme.

They gain the top of the plant by way of the trelliswork of the cage. Here are repeated, with increased hesitation, due to the inconvenient nature of the support, the tactics employed to remove the body when the soil is unfavourable. The insect props itself against a branch, thrusting alternately with back and claws, jerking and shaking vigorously until the point whereat it is working is freed from its fetters. In one brief shift, by dint of heaving their backs, the two collaborators extricate the body from the tangle. Yet another shake; and the Mouse is down. The burial follows.