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.