THE BURYING-BEETLES: EXPERIMENTS
Let us come to the feats of reason which have earned for the
Necrophorus the best part of his fame and, to begin with, submit the
case related by Clairville, that of the too hard soil and the call for
assistance, to the test of experiment.
With this object I pave the centre of the space beneath the cover,
flush with the soil, with a brick, which I sprinkle with a thin layer
of sand. This will be the soil that cannot be dug. All around it, for
some distance and on the same level, lies the loose soil, which is
easy to delve.
In order to approach the conditions of the anecdote, I must have a
Mouse; with a Mole, a heavy mass, the removal would perhaps present
too much difficulty. To obtain one, I place my friends and neighbours
under requisition; they laugh at my whim but none the less proffer
their traps. Yet, the moment a very common thing is needed, it becomes
rare. Defying decency in his speech, after the manner of his
ancestors' Latin, the Provencal says, but even more crudely than in my
translation:
"If you look for dung, the Donkeys become constipated!"
At last I possess the Mouse of my dreams! She comes to me from that
refuge, furnished with a truss of straw, in which official charity
grants a day's hospitality to the pauper wandering over the face of
the fertile earth, from that municipal hostel whence one inevitably
issues covered with Lice. O Reaumur,[1] who used to invite
marchionesses to see your caterpillars change their skins, what would
you have said of a future disciple conversant with such squalor as
this? Perhaps it is well that we should not be ignorant of it, so that
we may have compassion with that of the beast.
[Footnote 1: Rene Antoine Ferchault de Reaumur (1683-1757), the
inventor of the Reaumur thermometer and author of _Memoires pour
servir a l'histoire naturelle des insectes_
(1734-1742).--_Translator's Note_.]
The Mouse so greatly desired is mine. I place her upon the centre of
the brick. The grave-diggers under the wire cover are now seven in
number, including three 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 soon perceived. About seven o'clock in
the morning, three Necrophori come hurrying up, two males and a
female. They slip under the Mouse, who moves in jerks, a sign of the
efforts of the burying-party. An attempt is made to dig into the layer
of sand which hides the brick, so that a bank of rubbish accumulates
round the body.
For a couple of hours the jerks continue without results. I profit by
the circumstance to learn the manner in which the work is performed.
The bare brick allows me to see what the excavated soil would conceal
from me. When it is necessary to move the body, the Beetle turns over;
with his six claws he grips the hair of the dead animal, props himself
upon his back and pushes, using his forehead and the tip of his
abdomen as a lever. When he wants to dig, he resumes the normal
position. So, turn and turn about, the sexton strives, now with his
legs in the air, when it is a question of shifting the body or
dragging it lower down; now with his feet on the ground, when it is
necessary to enlarge the grave.
The point at which the Mouse lies is finally recognized as
unassailable. A male appears in the open. He explores the corpse, goes
round it, scratches a little at random. He goes back; and immediately
the dead body rocks. Is he advising his collaborators of what he has
discovered? Is he arranging the work with a view to their establishing
themselves elsewhere, on propitious soil?
The facts are far from confirming this idea. When he shakes the body,
the others imitate him and push, but without combining their efforts
in a given direction, for, after advancing a little towards the edge
of the brick, the burden goes back again, returning to the point of
departure. In the absence of a concerted understanding, their efforts
of leverage are wasted. Nearly three hours are occupied by
oscillations which mutually annul one another. The Mouse does not
cross the little sand-hill heaped about her by the rakes of the
workers.
For the second time, a male appears and makes a round of exploration.
A boring is effected in loose earth, close beside the brick. This is a
trial excavation, to learn the nature of the soil, a narrow well, of
no great depth, into which the insect plunges to half its length. The
well-sinker returns to the other workers, who arch their backs, and
the load progresses a finger's-breadth towards the point recognized as
favourable. Have we done the trick this time? No, for after a while
the Mouse recoils. There is no progress towards a solution of the
difficulty.
Now two males come out in search of information, each of his own
accord. Instead of stopping at the point already sounded, a point most
judiciously chosen, it seemed, on account of its proximity, which
would save laborious carting, they precipitately scour the whole area
of the cage, trying the soil on this side and on that and ploughing
superficial furrows in it. They get as far from the brick as the
limits of the enclosure permit.
They dig, by preference, against the base of the cover; here they make
several borings, without any reason, so far as I can see, the bed of
soil being everywhere equally assailable away from the brick; the
first point sounded is abandoned for a second, which is rejected in
its turn. A third and fourth are tried; then another. At the sixth
point the choice is made. In all these cases the excavation is by no
means a grave destined to receive the Mouse, but a mere trial boring,
of inconsiderable depth and of the diameter of the digger's body.
Back again to the Mouse, who suddenly shakes, swings, advances,
recoils, first in one direction, then in another, until in the end the
hillock of sand is crossed. Now we are free of the brick and on
excellent soil. Little by little the load advances. This is no cartage
by a team hauling in the open, but a jerky removal, the work of
invisible levers. The body seems to shift of its own accord.
This time, after all those hesitations, the efforts are concerted; at
least, the load reaches the region sounded far more rapidly than I
expected. Then begins the burial, according to the usual method. It is
one o'clock. It has taken the Necrophori halfway round the clock to
ascertain the condition of the locality and to displace the Mouse.
In this experiment it appears, in the first place, that the males play
a major part in the affairs of the household. Better-equipped,
perhaps, than their mates, they make investigations when a difficulty
occurs; they inspect the soil, recognize whence the check arises and
choose the spot at which the grave shall be dug. In the lengthy
experiment of the brick, the two males alone explored the surroundings
and set to work to solve the difficulty. Trusting her assistants, the
female, motionless beneath the Mouse, awaited the result of their
enquiries. The tests which are to follow will confirm the merits of
these valiant auxiliaries.
In the second place, the points where the Mouse lies being recognized
as presenting an insurmountable resistance, there is no grave dug in
advance, a little farther off, in the loose soil. All the attempts are
limited, I repeat, to shallow soundings, which inform the insect of
the possibility of inhumation.
It is absolute nonsense to speak of their first preparing the grave to
which the body will afterwards be carted. In order to excavate the
soil, our sextons have to feel the weight of their dead upon their
backs. They work only when stimulated by the contact of its fur.
Never, never in this world, do they venture to dig a grave unless the
body to be buried already occupies the site of the cavity. This is
absolutely confirmed by my two months and more of daily observations.
The rest of Clairville's anecdote bears examination no better. We are
told that the Necrophorus in difficulties goes in search of assistance
and returns with companions who assist him to bury the Mouse. This, in
another form, is the edifying story of the Sacred Beetle whose pellet
has rolled into a rut. Powerless to withdraw his booty from the abyss,
the wily Dung-beetle summons three or four of his neighbours, who
kindly pull out the pellet and return to their labours when the work
of salvage is done.[2]
[Footnote 2: For the confutation of this theory, cf. _The Sacred
Beetle and Others_: chap. i.--_Translator's Note_.]
The ill-interpreted exploit of the thieving pill-roller sets me on my
guard against that of the undertaker. Shall I be too particular if I
ask what precautions the observer took to recognize the owner of the
Mouse on his return, when he reappears, as we are told, with four
assistants? What sign denotes that one of the five who was able, in so
rational a manner, to call for help? Can we even be sure that the one
to disappear returns and forms one of the band? There is nothing to
tell us so; and this was the essential point which a sterling observer
was bound not to neglect. Were they not rather five chance Necrophori
who, guided by the smell, without any previous understanding, hastened
to the abandoned Mouse to exploit her on their own account? I incline
to this opinion, the likeliest of all in the absence of exact
information.
Probability becomes certainty if we check the fact by experiment. The
test with the brick already tells us something. For six hours my three
specimens exhausted themselves in efforts before they succeeded in
removing their booty and placing it on practicable soil. In this long
and heavy job, helpful neighbours would have been most welcome. Four
other Necrophori, buried here and there under a little sand, comrades
and acquaintances, fellow-workers of the day before, were occupying
the same cage; and not one of the busy ones thought of calling on them
to assist. Despite their extreme embarrassment, the owners of the
Mouse accomplished their task to the end, without the least help,
though this could have been so easily requisitioned.
Being three, one might say, they deemed themselves strong enough; they
needed no one else to lend them a hand. The objection does not hold
good. On many occasions and under conditions even more difficult than
those presented by a hard soil, I have again and again seen isolated
Necrophori wearing themselves out against my artifices; yet not once
did they leave their workshop to recruit helpers. Collaborators, it is
true, often arrive, but they are summoned by their sense of smell, not
by the first occupant. They are fortuitous helpers; they are never
called in. They are received without strife but also without
gratitude. They are not summoned; they are tolerated.
In the glazed shelter where I keep the cage I happened to catch one of
these chance assistants in the act. Passing that way in the night and
scenting dead flesh, he had entered where none of his kind had yet
penetrated of his own accord. I surprised him on the dome of the
cover. If the wire had not prevented him, he would have set to work
incontinently, in company with the rest. Had my captives invited this
one? Assuredly not. Heedless of others' efforts, he hastened up,
attracted by the odour of the Mole. So it was with those whose
obliging assistance is extolled. I repeat, in respect of their
imaginary prowess, what I have said elsewhere of the Sacred Beetle's:
it is a child's story, worthy to rank with any fairytale for the
amusement of the simple.
A hard soil, necessitating the removal of the body, is not the only
difficulty with which the Necrophori are acquainted. Frequently,
perhaps more often than not, the ground is covered with grass, above
all with couch-grass, whose tenacious rootlets form an inextricable
network below the surface. To dig in the interstices is possible, but
to drag the dead animal through them is another matter: the meshes of
the net are too close to give it passage. Will the grave-digger find
himself helpless against such an obstacle, which must be an extremely
common one? That could not be.
Exposed to this or that habitual impediment in the exercise of its
calling, the animal is always equipped accordingly; otherwise its
profession would be impracticable. No end is attained without the
necessary means and aptitudes. Besides that of the excavator, the
Necrophorus certainly possesses another art: the art of breaking the
cables, the roots, the stolons, the slender rhizomes which check the
body's descent into the grave. To the work of the shovel and the pick
must be added that of the shears. All this is perfectly logical and
may be clearly foreseen. Nevertheless, let us call in experiment, the
best of witnesses.
I borrow from the kitchen-range an iron trivet whose legs will supply
a solid foundation for the engine which I am devising. This is a
coarse network made of strips of raffia, a fairly accurate imitation
of that of the couch-grass. The very irregular meshes are nowhere wide
enough to admit of the passage of the creature to be buried, which
this time is a Mole. The machine is planted by its three feet in the
soil of the cage, level with the surface. A little sand conceals the
ropes. The Mole is placed in the centre; and my bands of sextons are
let loose upon the body.
The burial is performed without a hitch in the course of an afternoon.
The raffia hammock, almost the equivalent of the natural network of
the couch-grass, scarcely disturbs the burying-process. Matters do not
proceed quite so quickly; and that is all. No attempt is made to shift
the Mole, who sinks into the ground where he lies. When the operation
is finished, I remove the trivet. The network is broken at the spot
where the corpse was lying. A few strips have been gnawed through; a
small number, only as many as were strictly necessary to permit the
passage of the body.
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.
There is nothing new in this experiment: the find has been treated
just as though it lay on soil unsuitable for burial. The fall is the
result of an attempt to transport the load.
The time has come to set up the Frog's gibbet made famous by
Gleditsch. The batrachian is not indispensable; a Mole will serve as
well or even better. With a ligament of raffia I fix him, by his
hind-legs, to a twig which I plant vertically in the ground, inserting
it to no great depth. The creature hangs plumb against the gibbet, its
head and shoulders making ample contact with the soil.
The grave-diggers set to work beneath the part which lies along the
ground, at the very foot of the stake; they dig a funnel into which
the Mole's muzzle, head and neck sink little by little. The gibbet
becomes uprooted as they descend and ends by falling, dragged over by
the weight of its heavy burden. I am assisting at the spectacle of the
overturned stake, one of the most astonishing feats of reason with
which the insect has ever been credited.
This, for one who is considering the problem of instinct, is an
exciting moment. But let us beware of forming conclusions just yet; we
might be in too great a hurry. Let us first ask ourselves whether the
fall of the stake was intentional or accidental. Did the Necrophori
lay it bare with the express purpose of making it fall? Or did they,
on the contrary, dig at its base solely in order to bury that part of
the Mole which lay on the ground? That is the question, which, for the
rest, is very easy to answer.
The experiment is repeated; but this time the gibbet is slanting and
the Mole, hanging in a vertical position, touches the ground at a
couple of inches from the base of the apparatus. Under these
conditions, absolutely no attempt is made to overthrow it. Not the
least scrape of a claw is delivered at the foot of the gibbet. The
entire work of excavation is performed at a distance, under the body,
whose shoulders are lying on the ground. Here and here only a hole is
dug to receive the front of the body, the part accessible to the
sextons.
A difference of an inch in the position of the suspended animal
destroys the famous legend. Even so, many a time, the most elementary
sieve, handled with a little logic, is enough to winnow a confused
mass of statements and to release the good grain of truth.
Yet another shake of this sieve. The gibbet is slanting or
perpendicular, no matter which; but the Mole, fixed by his hind-legs
to the top of the twig, does not touch the soil; he hangs a few
fingers'-breadths from the ground, out of the sextons' reach.
What will they do now? Will they scrape at the foot of the gibbet in
order to overturn it? By no means; and the ingenuous observer who
looked for such tactics would be greatly disappointed. No attention is
paid to the base of the support. It is not vouchsafed even a stroke of
the rake. Nothing is done to overturn it, nothing, absolutely nothing!
It is by other methods that the Burying-beetles obtain the Mole.
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. And, in the latter case, if the
twig should happen to fall, this is in no way an intentional result,
but a mere fortuitous effect of the burial already commenced.
What, then, did the man with the Frog, of whom Gleditsch tells us,
really see? If his stick was overturned, the body placed to dry beyond
the assaults of the Necrophori must certainly have touched the soil: a
strange precaution against robbers and damp! We may well attribute
more foresight to the preparer of dried Frogs and allow him to hang
his animal a few inches off the ground. In that case, as all my
experiments emphatically declare, the fall of the stake undermined by
the sextons is a pure matter of imagination.
Yet another of the fine arguments in favour of the reasoning-power of
insects flies from the light of investigation and founders in the
slough of error! I wonder at your simple faith, O masters who take
seriously the statements of chance-met observers, richer in
imagination than in veracity; I wonder at your credulous zeal, when,
without criticism, you build up your theories on such absurdities!
Let us continue. The stake is henceforth planted perpendicularly, but
the body hanging on it does not reach the base: a condition enough to
ensure that there will never be any digging at this point. I make use
of a Mouse, who, by reason of her light weight, will lend herself
better to the insect's manoeuvres. The dead animal is fixed by the
hind-legs to the top of the apparatus with a raffia strap. It hangs
plumb, touching the stick.
Soon two Necrophori have discovered the morsel. They climb the greased
pole; they explore the prize, poking their foreheads into its fur. It
is recognized as an excellent find. To work, therefore. Here we have
again, but under more difficult conditions, the tactics employed when
it was necessary to displace the unfavourably situated body: the two
collaborators slip between the Mouse and the stake and, taking a grip
of the twig and exerting a leverage with their backs, they jerk and
shake the corpse, which sways, twirls about, swings away from the
stake and swings back again. All the morning is passed in vain
attempts, interrupted by explorations on the animal's body.
In the afternoon, the cause of the check is at last recognized; not
very clearly, for the two obstinate gallow-robbers first attack the
Mouse's hind-legs, a little way below the strap. They strip them bare,
flay them and cut away the flesh about the foot. They have reached the
bone, when one of them finds the string of raffia beneath his
mandibles. This, to him, is a familiar thing, representing the
grass-thread so frequent in burials in turfy soil. Tenaciously the
shears gnaw at the bond; the fibrous fetter is broken; and the Mouse
falls, to be buried soon after.
If it stood alone, this breaking of the suspending tie would be a
magnificent performance; but considered in connection with the sum of
the Beetle's customary labours it loses any far-reaching significance.
Before attacking the strap, which was not concealed in any way, the
insect exerted itself for a whole morning in shaking the body, its
usual method. In the end, finding the cord, it broke it, as it would
have broken a thread of couch-grass encountered underground.
Under the conditions devised for the Beetle, the use of the shears is
the indispensable complement of the use of the shovel; and the modicum
of discernment at his disposal is enough to inform him when it will be
well to employ the clippers. He cuts what embarrasses him, with no
more exercise of reason than he displays when lowering his dead Mouse
underground. So little does he grasp the relation of cause and effect
that he tries to break the bone of the leg before biting the raffia
which is knotted close beside him. The difficult task is attempted
before the extremely easy one.
Difficult, yes, but not impossible, provided that the Mouse be young.
I begin over again with a strip of iron wire, on which the insect's
shears cannot get a grip, and a tender Mousekin, half the size of an
adult. This time a tibia is gnawed through, sawed in two by the
Beetle's mandibles, near the spring of the heel. The detached leg
leaves plenty of space for the other, which readily slips from the
metal band; and the little corpse falls to the ground.
But, if the bone be too hard, if the prize suspended be a Mole, an
adult Mouse or a Sparrow, the wire ligament opposes an insurmountable
obstacle to the attempts of the Necrophori, who, for nearly a week,
work at the hanging body, partly stripping it of fur or feather and
dishevelling it until it forms a lamentable object, and at last
abandon it when desiccation sets in. And yet a last resource remained,
one as rational as infallible: to overthrow the stake. Of course, not
one dreams of doing so.
For the last time let us change our artifices. The top of the gibbet
consists of a little fork, with the prongs widely opened and measuring
barely two-fifths of an inch in length. With a thread of hemp, less
easily attacked than a strip of raffia, I bind the hind-legs of an
adult Mouse together, a little above the heels; and I slip one of the
prongs in between. To bring the thing down one has only to slide it a
little way upwards; it is like a young Rabbit hanging in the window of
a poulterer's shop.
Five Necrophori come to inspect what I have prepared. After much
futile shaking, the tibiae are attacked. This, it seems, is the method
usually employed when the corpse is caught by one of its limbs in some
narrow fork of a low-growing plant. While trying to saw through the
bone--a heavy job this time--one of the workers slips between the
shackled legs; in this position, he feels the furry touch of the Mouse
against his chine. No more is needed to arouse his propensity to
thrust with his back. With a few heaves of the lever the thing is
done: the Mouse rises a little, slides over the supporting peg and
falls to the ground.
Is this manoeuvre really thought out? Has the insect indeed perceived,
by the light of a flash of reason, that to make the morsel fall it was
necessary to unhook it by sliding it along the peg? Has it actually
perceived the mechanism of the hanging? I know some persons--indeed, I
know many--who, in the presence of this magnificent result, would be
satisfied without further investigation.
More difficult to convince, I modify the experiment before drawing a
conclusion. I suspect that the Necrophorus, without in any way
foreseeing the consequences of his action, heaved his back merely
because he felt the animal's legs above him. With the system of
suspension adopted, the push of the back, employed in all cases of
difficulty, was brought to bear first upon the point of support; and
the fall resulted from this happy coincidence. That point, which has
to be slipped along the peg in order to unhook the object, ought
really to be placed at a short distance from the Mouse, so that the
Necrophori may no longer feel her directly on their backs when they
push.
A wire binds together now the claws of a Sparrow, now the heels of a
Mouse and is bent, three-quarters of an inch farther away, into a
little ring, which slips very loosely over one of the prongs of the
fork, a short, almost horizontal prong. The least push of this ring is
enough to bring the hanging body to the ground; and because it stands
out it lends itself excellently to the insect's methods. In short, the
arrangement is the same as just now, with this difference, that the
point of support is at a short distance from the animal hung up.
My trick, simple though it be, is quite successful. For a long time
the body is repeatedly shaken, but in vain; the tibiae, the hard claws
refuse to yield to the patient saw. Sparrows and Mice grow dry and
shrivel, unused, upon the gallows. My Necrophori, some sooner, some
later, abandon the insoluble mechanical problem: to push, ever so
little, the movable support and so to unhook the coveted carcase.
Curious reasoners, in faith! If, just now, they had a lucid idea of
the mutual relations between the tied legs and the suspending peg; if
they made the Mouse fall by a reasoned manoeuvre, whence comes it that
the present artifice, no less simple than the first, is to them an
insurmountable obstacle? For days and days they work on the body,
examining it from head to foot, without noticing the movable support,
the cause of their mishap. In vain I prolong my watch; I never see a
single one of them push the support with his foot or butt it with his
head.
Their defeat is not due to lack of strength. Like the Geotrupes, they
are vigorous excavators. When you grasp them firmly in your hand, they
slip into the interstices of the fingers and plough up your skin so as
to make you quickly loose your hold. With his head, a powerful
ploughshare, the Beetle might very easily push the ring off its short
support. He is not able to do so, because he does not think of it; he
does not think of it, because he is devoid of the faculty attributed
to him, in order to support their theories, by the dangerous
generosity of the evolutionists.
Divine reason, sun of the intellect, what a clumsy slap in thy august
countenance, when the glorifiers of the animal degrade thee with such
denseness!
Let us now examine the mental obscurity of the Necrophori under
another aspect. My captives are not so satisfied with their sumptuous
lodging that they do not seek to escape, especially when there is a
dearth of labour, that sovran consoler of the afflicted, man or beast.
Internment within the wire cover palls upon them. So, when the Mole is
buried and everything in order in the cellar, they stray uneasily over
the trellised dome; they clamber up, come down, go up again and take
to flight, a flight which instantly becomes a fall, owing to collision
with the wire grating. They pick themselves up and begin all over
again. The sky is splendid; the weather is hot, calm and propitious
for those in search of the Lizard crushed beside the footpath. Perhaps
the effluvia of the gamy tit-bit have reached them from afar,
imperceptible to any other sense than that of the grave-diggers. My
Necrophori therefore would be glad to get away.
Can they? Nothing would be easier, if a glimmer of reason were to aid
them. Through the trelliswork, over which they have so often strayed,
they have seen, outside, the free soil, the promised land which they
want to reach. A hundred times if once have they dug at the foot of
the rampart. There, in vertical wells, they take up their station,
drowsing whole days on end while unemployed. If I give them a fresh
Mole, they emerge from their retreat by the entrance-corridor and come
to hide themselves beneath the belly of the beast. The burial over,
they return, one here, one there, to the confines of the enclosure and
disappear underground.
Well, in two and a half months of captivity, despite long stays at the
base of the trellis, at a depth of three-quarters of an inch beneath
the surface, it is rare indeed for a Necrophorus to succeed in
circumventing the obstacle, in prolonging his excavation beneath the
barrier, in digging an elbow and bringing it out on the other side, a
trifling task for these vigorous creatures. Of fourteen only one
succeeds in escaping.
A chance deliverance and not premeditated; for, if the happy event had
been the result of a mental combination, the other prisoners,
practically his equals in powers of perception, would all, from first
to last, have discovered by rational means the elbowed path leading to
the outer world; and the cage would promptly be deserted. 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. I find the ineptness
of the undertaker in all the Beetles reared under the wire cover, on
the bed of sand into which the rim of the dome sinks a little way.
With very rare exceptions, fortuitous accidents, not one thinks of
circumventing the barrier by way of the base; not one manages to get
outside by means of a slanting tunnel, not even though he be a miner
by profession, as are the Dung-beetles _par excellence_. Captives
under the wire dome and anxious to escape, Sacred Beetles, Geotrupes,
Copres, Gymnopleuri,[3] Sisyphi,[4] all see about them the free space,
the joys of the open sunlight; and not one thinks of going round under
the rampart, which would present no difficulty to their pickaxes.
[Footnote 3: Cf. _The Sacred Beetle and Others_: chap.
vii.--_Translator's Note_.]
[Footnote 4: Cf. _idem_: chap. xv.--_Translator's Note_.]
Even in the higher ranks of animality, examples of similar mental
obfuscation are not lacking. Audubon[5] tells us how, in his days,
wild Turkeys were caught in North America. In a clearing known to be
frequented by these birds, a great cage was constructed with stakes
driven into the ground. In the centre of the enclosure opened a short
tunnel, which dipped under the palisade and returned to the surface
outside the cage by a gentle slope, which was open to the sky. The
central opening, wide enough to give a bird free passage, occupied
only a portion of the enclosure, leaving around it, against the circle
of stakes, a wide unbroken zone. A few handfuls of maize were
scattered in the interior of the trap, as well as round about it, and
in particular along the sloping path, which passed under a sort of
bridge and led to the centre of the contrivance. In short, the
Turkey-trap presented an ever-open door. The bird found it in order to
enter, but did not think of looking for it in order to go out.
[Footnote 5: John James Audubon (1780-1851), the noted American
ornithologist, of French descent, author of _Birds of America_
(1827-1830) and _Ornithological Biography_ (1831-1839).--_Translator's
Note_.]
According to the famous American ornithologist, the Turkeys, lured by
the grains of maize, descended the insidious slope, entered the short
underground passage and beheld, at the end of it, plunder and the
light. A few steps farther and the gluttons emerged, one by one, from
beneath the bridge. They distributed themselves about the enclosure.
The maize was abundant; and the Turkeys' crops grew swollen.
When all was gathered, the band wished to retreat, but not one of the
prisoners paid any attention to the central hole by which he had
arrived. Gobbling uneasily, they passed again and again across the
bridge whose arch was yawning beside them; they circled round against
the palisade, treading a hundred times in their own footprints; they
thrust their necks, with their crimson wattles, through the bars; and
there, with their beaks in the open air, they fought and struggled
until they were exhausted.
Remember, O inept one, what happened but a little while ago; think of
the tunnel that led you hither! If that poor brain of yours contains
an atom of ability, put two ideas together and remind yourself that
the passage by which you entered is there and open for your escape!
You will do nothing of the kind. The light, an irresistible
attraction, holds you subjugated against the palisade; and the shadow
of the yawning pit, which has but lately permitted you to enter and
will quite as readily permit you to go out, leaves you indifferent. To
recognize the use of this opening you would have to reflect a little,
to recall the past; but this tiny retrospective calculation is beyond
your powers. So the trapper, returning a few days later, will find a
rich booty, the entire flock imprisoned!
Of poor intellectual repute, does the Turkey deserve his name for
stupidity? He does not appear to be more limited than another. Audubon
depicts him as endowed with certain useful ruses, in particular when
he has to baffle the attacks of his nocturnal enemy, the Virginian
Owl. As for his behaviour in the snare with the underground passage,
any other bird, impassioned of the light, would do the same.
Under rather more difficult conditions, the Necrophorus repeats the
ineptness of the Turkey. When he wishes to return to the daylight,
after resting in a short burrow against the rim of the cover, the
Beetle, seeing a little light filtering through the loose soil,
reascends the entrance-well, incapable of telling himself that he has
only to prolong the tunnel as far in the opposite direction to reach
the outer world beyond the wall and gain his freedom. Here again is
one in whom we shall seek in vain for any sign of reflection. Like the
rest, in spite of his legendary renown, he has no guide but the
unconscious promptings of instinct.