For a long time the body is repeatedly shaken, but in vain; the tibiae or tarsi, unduly hard, refuse to yield to the patient saw.

Sparrows and Mice grow dry and shrivelled, unused, upon the gibbet.

Sooner in one case, later in another, my Necrophori abandon the insoluble problem in mechanics: to push, ever so little, the movable support and so to unhook the coveted carcass.
Curious reasoners, in faith! If they had had, but now, a lucid idea of the mutual relations between the shackled limbs and the suspending peg; if they had made the Mouse fall by a reasoned manoeuvre, whence comes it that the present artifice, no less simple than the first, is to them an insurmountable obstacle?
For days and days they work on the body, examine it from head to foot, without becoming aware of the movable support, the cause of their misadventure.

In vain do I prolong my watch; never do I see a single one of them push it with his foot or butt it with his head.
Their defeat is not due to lack of strength.

Like the Geotrupes, they are vigorous excavators.