desiccation sets in. A last resource, however,
remains, one as rational as infallible. It is to overthrow the stake.
Of course, not one dreams of doing so.

For the last time let us change our artifices. The top of the gibbet
consists of a little fork, with the prongs widely opened and measuring
barely two-fifths of an inch in length. With a thread of hemp, less
easily attacked than a strip of raphia, I bind together, a little above
the heels, the hind-legs of an adult Mouse; and between the legs I slip
one of the prongs of the fork. To make the body fall it is enough to
slide it a little way upwards; it is like a young Rabbit hanging in the
front of a poulterer's shop.

Five Necrophori come to inspect my preparations. After a great deal of
futile shaking, the tibiae are attacked. This, it seems, is the method
usually employed when the body is retained by one of its limbs in some
narrow fork of a low-growing plant. While trying to saw through the
bone--a heavy job this time--one of the workers slips between the
shackled limbs. So situated, he feels against his back the furry touch
of the Mouse. Nothing more is needed to arouse his propensity to thrust
with his back. With a few heaves of the lever the thing is done; the
Mouse rises a little, slides over the supporting peg and falls to the
ground.

Is this manoeuvre really thought out? Has the insect indeed perceived,
by the light of a flash of reason, that in order to make the tit-bit
fall it was necessary to unhook it by sliding it along the peg? Has it
really perceived the mechanism of suspension? I know some
persons--indeed, I know many--who, in the presence of this magnificent
result, would be satisfied without further investigation.

More difficult to convince, I modify the experiment before drawing a
conclusion. I suspect that the Necrophorus, without any prevision of
the consequences of his action, heaved his back simply because he felt
the legs of the creature above him. With the system of suspension
adopted, the push of the back, employed in all cases of difficulty, was
brought to bear first upon the point of support; and the fall resulted
from this happy coincidence. That point, which has to be slipped along
the peg in order to unhook the object, ought really to be situated at a
short distance from the Mouse, so that the Necrophori shall no longer
feel her directly against their backs when they push.

A piece of wire binds together now the tarsi of a Sparr