[f. as prec. + -ING2.] Interring; enclosing, whelming.
1762–9. Falconer, Shipwr., III. 590. The burying waters close around their head.
1855. Tennyson, Maud, II. v. 12. Never an end to the stream of passing feet, Driving, hurrying, marrying, burying.
Hence Burying beetle, -sylph, a clavicorn beetle, which excavates the ground beneath the dead bodies of mice, moles, and other small quadrupeds, so as to bury them as a nidus for its larvæ.
1802. Bingley, Anim. Biog. (1813), III. 126. The burying sylph … Synonyms. Silpha vespillo. Linn.—Scarabæus silphoides?
1883. Wood, in Gd. Words, Dec., 762/1. Burying Beetles, with their orange and black-banded bodies.
