Not a Tumble-Bug could be found on duty, so the Mound was excavated by a working party of Ants.  Nothing was discovered.  This would have been a great disappointment, had not the venerable Longlegs explained the matter.  He said: 

“It is now plain to me that the mysterious and forgotten race of Mound Builders did not always erect these edifices as mausoleums, else in this case, as in all previous cases, their skeletons would be found here, along with the rude implements which the creatures used in life.  Is not this manifest?”

“True! true!” from everybody.

“Then we have made a discovery of peculiar value here; a discovery which greatly extends our knowledge of this creature in place of diminishing it; a discovery which will add luster to the achievements of this expedition and win for us the commendations of scholars everywhere.  For the absence of the customary relics here means nothing less than this:  The Mound Builder, instead of being the ignorant, savage reptile we have been taught to consider him, was a creature of cultivation and high intelligence, capable of not only appreciating worthy achievements of the great and noble of his species, but of commemorating them!  Fellow-scholars, this stately Mound is not a sepulcher, it is a monument!”

A profound impression was produced by this.

But it was interrupted by rude and derisive laughter—­and the Tumble-Bug appeared.

“A monument!” quoth he.  “A monument setup by a Mound Builder!  Aye, so it is!  So it is, indeed, to the shrewd keen eye of science; but to an, ignorant poor devil who has never seen a college, it is not a Monument, strictly speaking, but is yet a most rich and noble property; and with your worship’s good permission I will proceed to manufacture it into spheres of exceedings grace and—­”

The Tumble-Bug was driven away with stripes, and the draftsmen of the expedition were set to making views of the Monument from different standpoints, while Professor Woodlouse, in a frenzy of scientific zeal, traveled all over it and all around it hoping to find an inscription.  But if there had ever been one, it had decayed or been removed by some vandal as a relic.

The views having been completed, it was now considered safe to load the precious Monument itself upon the backs of four of the largest Tortoises and send it home to the king’s museum, which was done; and when it arrived it was received with enormous Mat and escorted to its future abiding-place by thousands of enthusiastic citizens, King Bullfrog XVI. himself attending and condescending to sit enthroned upon it throughout the progress.

The growing rigor of the weather was now admonishing the scientists to close their labors for the present, so they made preparations to journey homeward.  But even their last day among the Caverns bore fruit; for one of the scholars found in an out-of-the-way corner of the Museum or “Burial Place” a most strange and extraordinary thing.  It was nothing less than a double Man-Bird lashed together breast to breast by a natural ligament, and labeled with the untranslatable words, “Siamese Twins.”  The official report concerning this thing closed thus: