frogs, three small birds, two fishes, one mole, and two grasshoppers, besides the entrails of a fish, and two morsels of the lungs of an ox. In another experiment, a single beetle buried a mole, forty times its own bulk and weight, in two days."[CG] In the summer of 1826, we found on Putney Heath, in Surrey, four of these beetles, hard at work in burying a dead crow, precisely in the manner described by M. Gleditsch. (J. R.) Dung-Beetle. A still more common British insect, the dorr, clock, or dung-beetle (_Geotrupes stercorarius_), uses different materials for burying along with its eggs. "It digs," to use the words of Kirby and Spence, "a deep cylindrical hole, and carrying down a mass of the dung to the bottom, in it deposits its eggs. And many of the species of the genus _Ateuchus_ roll together wet dung into round pellets, deposit an egg in the midst of each, and when dry push them backwards, by their hind feet, to holes of the surprising depth of three feet, which they have previously dug for their reception, and which are often several yards distant. The attention of these insects to their eggs is so remarkable, that it was observed in the earliest ages, and is mentioned by ancient writers, but with the addition of many fables; as that they were all of the male sex; that they became young again every year; and that they rolled the pellets containing their eggs from sunrise to sunset every day, for twenty-eight days, without intermission."[CH] "We frequently notice in our evening walks," says Mr. Knapp, "the murmuring passage, and are often stricken by the heedless flight of the great dorr-beetle (_Geotrupes stercorarius_), clocks, as the boys call them. But this evening my attention was called to them in particular, by the constant passing of such a number as to constitute something like a little stream; and I was led to search into the object of their direct flight, as in general it is irregular and seemingly inquisitive. I soon found that they dropped on some recent nuisance: but what powers of perception must these creatures possess, drawn from all distances and directions by the very little fetor which, in such a calm evening, could be diffused around, and by what inconceivable means could odours reach, this beetle in such a manner as to rouse so inert an insect into action! But it is appointed one of the great scavengers of the earth, and marvellously endowed with powers of sensation, and means of effecting this purpose of its being. Exquisitely fabricated as it is to receive impressions, yet probably it is not more highly gifted than any of the other innumerable creatures that wing their way around us, or creep about our paths, though by this one perceptible faculty, thus 'dimly seen,' it excites our wonder and surprise. How wondrous then the whole!