consisted entirely of two species--Dermestes and
Saprinidae--both eager prospectors of carrion and animal detritus during
the spring.

My friend Bull, an honest dog all his lifetime if ever there was one,
amongst other eccentricities had the following: finding in the dust of
the road the shrivelled body of a mole, flattened by the feet of
pedestrians, mummified by the heat of the sun, he would slide himself
over it, from the tip of his nose to the root of his tail, he would rub
himself against it deliciously over and over again, shaken with nervous
spasms, and roll upon it first in one direction, then in the other.

It was his sachet of musk, his flask of eau-de-Cologne. Perfumed to his
liking, he would rise, shake himself, and proceed on his way, delighted
with his toilet. Do not let us scold him, and above all do not let us
discuss the matter. There are all kinds of tastes in a world.

Why should there not be insects with similar habits among the amateurs
of corpse-like savours? We see Dermestes and Saprinidae hastening to the
arum-flower. All day long they writhe and wriggle in a swarm, although
perfectly free to escape; numbers perish in the tumultuous orgy. They
are not retained by the desire of food, for the arum provides them with
nothing eatable; they do not come to breed, for they take care not to
establish their grubs in that place of famine. What are these frenzied
creatures doing? Apparently they are intoxicated with fetidity, as was
Bull when he rolled on the putrid body of a mole.

This intoxication draws them from all parts of the neighbourhood,
perhaps over considerable distances; how far we do not know. The
Necrophori, in quest of a place where to establish their family, travel
great distances to find the corpses of small animals, informed by such
odours as offend our own senses at a considerable distance.

The _Hydnocystis_, the food of the Bolboceras, emits no such brutal
emanations as these, which readily diffuse themselves through space; it
is inodorous, at least to our senses. The insect which seeks it does not
come from a distance; it inhabits the places wherein the cryptogam is
found. Faint as are the effluvia of this subterranean fungus, the
prospecting epicure, being specially equipped, perceives them with the
greatest ease; but then he operates at close range, from the surface of
the soil. The truffle-dog is in the same case; he searches with his nose
to the ground. The true truffle, howev