The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1880-07-01

again, ana proved themselves 70 DO
possessed of enough intelligence to
remedy the fault; for this time they
ut once to deepen the
shallower part of the grave, and the
mole was fast settling down Tito a
more level position, when darkness
made us desert our post of observation.
Our little friends had been hard at
work for three hours, ahd the mole was
scarcely more than one-fourth buried.
But in the morning Gas we felt sure
would be the CASEY, the mole had Dis
appeared, and on scraping away the
soil we found it carefully covered. three
or four inches below the surface. and
leading out from beneath it was little
round hole. where Lady Necrophorus
had come up, after laying her eggs
upon the tit-bit so laboriously provided
for her coming progeny.
A famous entomo1ogist, NJ. Gleiditsch,
tells US some strange things about these
same curious insect sections, he having
made them special study and subjece
of experiments Once no half filed .
glass vessel with moist earth, and
placed four sections within it; then he
laid dead linnet on the surface of the
soil. The insects, so fan from showing
alarm at their captivity, appeared to
have but one idea in life, that of bury
ing the linnet as quickly as possible.
NJ. Gleiditsch had observed that one of
the beetles was smaller than the others
Che supposed it to be female), and
now, after two hours of hard work.
there was a sudden pause, and the
three large beetles united to drive away
the smaller one. Why did they do
this? Surely they had some reason for
such unanimous action? Was the ont
cast beetle not working skillfully, or
was it working beyond its strength?
Was it driven away in friendship or
enmityp Who shall say? At all events,
the three resumed their occupation,
and though the smaller one stove sew
eral times to come back, it was not al
lowed to do so, SO it finally kept at q
distance and watched the others as they
worked steadily on. But at last even
their more sturdy strength began to
give out, despite their evident resolve
to bury that linnet without loss of time.
just one little black sexton rested from
his labors, then another, but the third
beetle kept on and on and on, till NJ.
Gleiditsch noted, with establishment,
that no less than five hours had passed
since its last fellow worker had given
out; but at last, it, too, sank down ex-
hausted. After very short rest, how
ever, it reused itself, and, with won
derful effort of strength, actually lifted
the linnet on its back, and settled it
down into the grave. The other bee
ties, recovering, went to work again,
but it took them three days to hollow
out the grave beneath the linnet, and
cover it out of sight.
But M. Gleiditsch gave them plenty
more work to do, desiring to test their
burial capacities. and thus. in fifty days,
these four busy sections (for after time
the fourth was allowed to resume work)
proceeded to dig graves for three birds,
two grasshoppers, four frogs, two fish,
two large pieces of meat, and the en-
trails of large fish.
Another of these little grave-diggers
was so strong, and so persevering, that
it succeeded, by its own single exer-
tions, in burying mole in two days, and,
as we have seen, the mole being fifty
times as large as the beetle, it cost
that little sexton Just as much labor as
it would cost man to bury an object
fifty times his own size-no light UNDER
taking.
But sometimes these queer little sex
tons encounter acOrpse that is too much
for them. For instance, we are told of
a sheep that was skinned and thrown
where the beetles most did congrc-
gate" The result was that anticipated
by the naturalist who thus prepared the
bait. The body swarmLd with hungry
beetles, but all theft efforts were of no
avail. The united exertious of hundreds
of Necrophag0 were only able to sink it
one-fourth below the surface of the
ground, and then they left it in despair,
but not before their entcrtaincr-a
second Tantalus captured speci-
mems of every species existing in En-
gland, which was the scene of the OK
pertinent.
And now word in closing regard
ing the method of grave-digging prac-
ticed by the sexton. beet c. Is it not
wonderfully like the plan adopted by
man in sinking wells in sandy soils?
The insect digs away the ground from
beneath the body, and the latter sinks
lower and lower. The man builds
circular wall of stone or brick, and
digs away the sand from beneath it, SO
that it sinks to lower level. Then
more wall is built, and again the sand
is scraped away, and the tube thus sunk
becomes the lining of the well. Man,
out of his experience and intelligence,
has invented this method of sinking
large objects in the ground, but who
taught the humble little beetle the
same principle, the same method of
sinking q weight too great for it to
move in any other way? Man thought
it out, and it took him long time to do
it, too, but surely it was God who
taught the humble insect sexton how
best to pursue the calling He had Sc
lected for it! It is only one among
myriads of proofs that lie all around US
of our Fathers infinite care and love
for the very leas. of His creatures
Helen H1rc0skrf in G0lflen Dnus