dead master. I had this story from the lips of one of the witnesses.

In all such cases, whether the dog watches over, conceals, or buries a
dead body, he is doubtless moved by the same instinct which leads him to
safeguard the animal he is attached to--another dog or his human master.
But, as the dead animal is past help, it is, of course, a blunder of the
instinct; and the blunder must be of very much less frequent occurrence
among wild than among domestic animals. In a state of nature, when a
gregarious animal dies, he dies, as a rule, alone; his body is not seen
by his former companions, and he is not missed. When he dies by
violence--which is the common fate--the body is carried off or devoured
by the killer. This being the usual order, there is no instinct, except
in a very few species, relating to the disposal of the dead among
mammals and other vertebrates, such as is found in ants and other social
insects. There are a few mammalians that live together in small
communities, in a habitation made to last for many generations, in which
such an instinct would appear necessary, and it accordingly exists, but
is very imperfect. This is the case with the vizcacha, the large rodent
of the pampas, which lives with its fellows, to the number of twenty or
thirty, in a cluster of huge burrows. When a vizcacha dies in a burrow,
the body is dragged out and thrown on to the mound among the mass of
rubbish collected on it--but not until he has been dead a long time, and
there is nothing left of him but the dry bones held together by the
skin. In that condition the other members of the community probably
cease to look on him as one of their companions who has fallen into a
long sleep; he is no more than so much rubbish, which must be cleared
out of an old disused burrow. Probably the beaver possesses some rude
instinct similar to that of the vizcacha.

_Apropos_ of animals burying their treasures (or connections) for