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.