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 at the surface.
This observation is not an isolated one. Whenever I am present at a burial undertaken by a squad in which the males, zealous one and all, predominate, I find presently, when the burial is completed, only one couple in the mortuary cellar. Having lent their assistance, the rest have discreetly retired.
These grave-diggers, in truth, are remarkable fathers. They have nothing of the happy-go-lucky paternal carelessness that is the general rule among insects, which plague and pester the mother for a moment with their attentions and thereupon leave her to care for the offspring! But those who in the other races are unemployed in this case labour valiantly, now in the interest of their own family, now for the sake of another's, without distinction. If a couple is in difficulties, helpers arrive, attracted by the odour of carrion; anxious to serve a lady, they creep under the body, work at it with back and claw, bury it and then go their ways, leaving the householders to their happiness.
For some time longer these latter manipulate the morsel in concert, stripping it of fur or feather, trussing it and allowing it to simmer to the taste of the larvae. When all is in order, the couple go forth, dissolving their partnership, and each, following his fancy, recommences elsewhere, even if only as a mere auxiliary.
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?
What follows—the larval existence and the metamorphosis—is a secondary detail and, for that matter, familiar. It is a dry subject and I shall deal with it briefly. About the end of May, I exhume a Brown Rat, buried by the grave-diggers a fortnight earlier. Transformed into a black, sticky jelly, the horrible dish provides me with fifteen larvae, already, for the most part, of the normal size. A few adults, connections, assuredly, of the brood, are also stirring amid the infected mass. The period of hatching is over now; and food is plentiful. Having nothing else to do, the foster-parents have sat down to the feast with the nurselings.
The undertakers are quick at rearing a family. It is at most a fortnight since the Rat was laid in the earth; and here already is a vigorous population on the verge of the metamorphosis. Such precocity amazes me. It would seem as though the liquefaction of carrion, deadly to any other stomach, is in this case a food productive of especial energy, which stimulates the organism and accelerates its growth, so that the victuals may be consumed before its approaching conversion into mould. Living chemistry makes haste to outstrip the ultimate reactions of mineral chemistry.
White, naked, blind, possessing the habitual attributes of life in darkness, the larva, with its lanceolate outline, is slightly reminiscent of the grub of the Ground-beetle. The mandibles are black and powerful, making excellent scissors for dissection. The limbs are short, but capable of a quick, toddling gait. The segments of the abdomen are armoured on the upper surface with a narrow reddish plate, armed with four tiny spikes, whose office apparently is to furnish points of support when the larva quits the natal dwelling and dives into the soil, there to undergo the transformation. The thoracic segments are provided with wider plates, but unarmed.
The adults discovered in the company of their larval family, in this putridity that 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 surface. The insect presents a misshapen appearance under this overcoat of vermin, which my hair-pencil can hardly brush aside. Driven off the belly, the horde make the tour of the sufferer and encamp on his back, refusing to relinquish their hold.
I recognize among them the Beetle's Gamasis, the Tick who so often soils the ventral amethyst of our Geotrupes. No; the prizes of life do not fall to the share of the useful. Necrophori and Geotrupes devote themselves to works of general salubrity; and these two corporations, so interesting in the accomplishment of their hygienic functions, so remarkable for their domestic morality, are given over to the vermin of poverty. Alas, of this discrepancy between the services rendered and the harshness of life there are many other examples outside the world of scavengers and undertakers!