shrink into a ring as did the last, which was younger and only half as large. It struggles awkwardly, lying on its side, half-open. For all defence it twists about; it opens, closes and reopens the great hooks of its mandibles. The Scolia grabs it at random, clasps it in her shaggy legs and for nearly a quarter of an hour battles with the luscious tit-bit. At last, after a not very tumultuous struggle, when the favourable position is attained and the propitious moment has come, the sting is implanted in the creature’s thorax, in a central point, below the throat, level with the fore-legs. The effect is instantaneous: total inertia, except of the appendages of the head, the antennae and mouth-parts. I achieved the same results, the same prick at a definite, invariable point, with my several operators, renewed from time to time by some lucky cast of the net.
Let us mention, in conclusion, that the attack of the Interrupted Scolia is far less fierce than that of the Two-banded Scolia. The Wasp, a rough sand- digger, has a clumsy gait; her movements are stiff and almost automatic. She does not find it easy to repeat her dagger-thrust. Most of the specimens with which I experimented refused a second victim on the first two days after their exploits. As though somnolent, they did not stir unless excited by my teasing them with a bit of straw. Although more active and more ardent in the chase, the Two-banded Scolia likewise does not draw her weapon every time that I invite her. For all these huntresses there are moments of inaction which the presence of a fresh prey is powerless to disturb.
The Scoliae have taught me nothing further, in the absence of subjects belonging to other species. No matter: the results obtained represent no small triumph for my ideas. Before seeing the Scoliae operate, I said, guided solely by the anatomy of the victims, that the Cetonia-, Anoxia- and Oryctes-larvae must be paralysed by a single thrust of the lancet; I even named the point where the sting must strike, a central point, in the immediate vicinity of the fore-legs. Of the three genera of paralysers, two have allowed me to witness their surgical methods, which the third, I feel certain, will confirm. In both cases, a single thrust of the lancet; in both cases, injection of the venom at a predetermined point. A calculator in an observatory could not compute the position of his planet with greater accuracy. An idea may be taken as proved when it attains to this mathematical forecast of the future, this certain knowledge of the unknown. When will the acclaimers of chance achieve a like success? Order appeals to order; and chance knows no laws.
CHAPTER 13. THE METHOD OF THE CALICURGI.
The non-armoured victims, vulnerable by the sting over almost their whole body, ordinary caterpillars and Looper caterpillars, Cetonia- and Anoxia- larvae, whose only means of defence, apart from their mandibles, consists of rollings and contortions, called for the testimony of another victim, the Spider, almost as ill-protected, but armed with formidable poison- fangs. How, in particular, will the Ringed Calicurgus set to work in operating on the Black-bellied Tarantula, the terrible Lycosa, who with a single bite kills the Mole or the Sparrow and endangers the life of man? How does the bold Pompilus overcome an adversary more powerful than herself, better-equipped with virulent poison and capable of making a meal of her assailant? Of all the Hunting Wasps, none risks such unequal conflicts, in which appearances would proclaim the aggressor to be the victim and the victim the aggressor.
The problem was one deserving patient study. True, I foresaw, from the Spider’s organization, a single sting in the centre of the thorax; but that did not explain the victory of the Wasp, emerging safe and sound from her tussle with such a quarry. I had to see what occurred. The chief difficulty was the scarcity of the Calicurgus. It is easy for me to obtain the Tarantula at the desired moment: the part of the plateau in my neighbourhood left untilled by the vine-growers provides me with as many as are necessary. To capture the Pompilus is another matter. I have so little hope of finding her that special quests are regarded as useless. To search for her would perhaps be just the way not to find her. Let us rely on the uncertainties of chance. Shall I get her or shall I not?
I’ve got her. I catch her unexpectedly on the flowers. Next day I supply myself with half a dozen Tarantulae. Perhaps I shall be able to employ them one after the other in repeated duels. As I return from my Lycosa-hunt, luck smiles upon me again and crowns my desires. A second Calicurgus offers herself to my net; she is dragging her heavy, paralysed Spider by one leg, in the dust of the highway. I attach great value to my find: the laying of the egg has become a pressing matter; and the mother, I believe, will accept a substitute for her victim without much hesitation. Here then are my two captives, each under her bell-glass with her Tarantula.
I am all eyes. What a tragedy there will be in a moment! I wait, anxiously…But…but…what is this? Which of the two is the assailed? Which is the assailant? The characters seem to be inverted. The Calicurgus, unable to climb up the smooth glass wall, strides round the ring of the circus. With a proud and rapid gait, her wings and antennae vibrating, she goes and returns. The Lycosa is soon seen. The Calicurgus approaches her without the least sign of fear, walks round her and appears to have the intention of seizing one of her legs. But at that moment the Tarantula rises almost vertically on her four hinder legs, with her four front legs lifted and outspread, ready for the counterstroke. The poison-fangs gape widely; a drop of venom moistens their tips. The very sight of them makes my flesh creep. In this terrible attitude, presenting her powerful thorax and the black velvet of her belly to the enemy, the Spider overawes the Pompilus, who suddenly turns tail and moves away. The Lycosa then closes her bundle of poisoned daggers and resumes her natural pose, standing on her eight legs; but, at the slightest attempt at aggression on the Wasp’s part, she resumes her threatening position.
She does more: suddenly she leaps and flings herself upon the Calicurgus; swiftly she clasps her and nibbles at her with her fangs. Without wielding her sting in self-defence, the other disengages herself and merges unscathed from the angry encounter. Several times in succession I witness the attack; and nothing serious ever befalls the Wasp, who swiftly withdraws from the fray and appears to have received no hurt. She resumes her marching and countermarching no less boldly and swiftly than before.
Is this Wasp invulnerable, that she thus escapes from the terrible fangs? Evidently not. A real bite would be fatal to her. Big, sturdily built Acridians succumb (Locusts and Grasshoppers.–Translator’s Note.); how is it that she, with her delicate organism, does not! The Spider’s daggers, therefore, make no more than an idle feint; their points do not enter the flesh of the tight-clasped Wasp. If the strokes were real, I should see bleeding wounds, I should see the fangs close for a moment on the part seized; and with all my attention I cannot detect anything of the kind. Then are the fangs powerless to pierce the Wasp’s integuments? Not so. I have seen them penetrate, with a crackling of broken armour, the corselet of the Acridians, which offers a far greater resistance. Once again, whence comes this strange immunity of the Calicurgus held between the legs and assailed by the daggers of the Tarantula? I do not know. Though in mortal peril from the enemy confronting her, the Lycosa threatens her with her fangs and cannot decide to bite, owing to a repugnance which I do not undertake to explain.
Obtaining nothing more than alarums and excursions of no great seriousness, I think of modifying the gladiatorial arena and approximating it to natural conditions. The soil is very imperfectly represented by my work-table; and the Spider has not her fortress, her burrow, which plays a part of some importance both in attack and in defence. A short length of reed is planted perpendicularly in a large earthenware pan filled with sand. This will be the Lycosa’s burrow. In the middle I stick some heads of globe-thistle garnished with honey as a refectory for the Pompilus; a couple of Locusts, renewed as and when consumed, will sustain the Tarantula. These comfortable quarters, exposed to the sun, receive the two captives under a wire-gauze dome, which provides adequate ventilation for a prolonged residence.
My artifices come to nothing; the session closes without result. A day passes, two days, three; still nothing happens. The Pompilus is assiduous in her visits to the honeyed flower-clusters; when she has eaten her fill, she clambers up the dome and makes interminable circuits of the netting; the Tarantula quietly munches her Locust. If the other passes within reach, she swiftly raises herself and waves her off. The artificial burrow, the reed-stump, fulfills its purpose excellently. The Lycosa and the Pompilus resort to it in turns, but without quarrelling. And that is all. The drama whose prologue was so full of promise appears to be indefinitely postponed.
I have a last resource, on which I base great hopes: it is to remove my two Calicurgi to the very site of their investigations and to install them at the door of the Spider’s lodging, at the top of the natural burrow. I take the field with an equipment which I am carrying across the country for the first time: a glass bell-jar, a wire-gauze cover and the various implements needed for handling and transferring my irascible and dangerous subjects. My search for burrows among the pebbles and the tufts of thyme and lavender is soon successful.
Here is a splendid one. I learn by inserting a straw that it is inhabited by a Tarantula of a size suited to my plans. The soil around the aperture is cleared and flattened to receive the wire-gauze, under which I place a Pompilus. This is the time to light a pipe and wait, lying on the pebbles…Yet another disappointment. Half an hour goes by; and the Wasp confines herself to travelling round and round the netting as she did in my study. She gives no sign of greed when confronted with the burrow, though I can see the Tarantula’s diamond eyes glittering at the bottom.
The trellised wall is replaced by the glass wall, which, since it does not allow her to scale its heights, will oblige the Wasp to remain on the ground and at last to take cognizance of the shaft, which she seems to ignore. This time we have done the trick!
After a few circuits of her cage, the Calicurgus notices the pit yawning at her feet. She goes down it. This daring confounds me. I should never have ventured to anticipate as much. That she should suddenly fling herself upon the Tarantula when the latter is outside her stronghold, well and good; but to rush into the lair, when the terrible monster is waiting for you below with those two poisoned daggers of hers! What will come of such temerity? A buzzing of wings ascends from the depths. Run to earth in her private apartments, the Lycosa is no doubt at grips with the intruder. That hum of wings is the Calicurgus’ paean of triumph, until it be her death-song. The slayer may well be the slain. Which of the two will come up alive?
It is the Lycosa, who hurriedly scampers out and posts herself just over the orifice of the burrow, in her posture of defence, her fangs open, her four front legs uplifted. Can the other have been stabbed? Not at all, for she emerges in her turn, not without receiving on the way a cuff from the Spider, who immediately regains her lair. Dislodged from her basement a second and yet a third time, the Tarantula always comes up unwounded; she always awaits her adversary on her threshold, administers punishment and reenters her dwelling. In vain do I try my two Pompili alternately and change the burrow; I do not succeed in observing anything else. Certain conditions not realized by my stratagems are lacking to complete the tragedy.
Discouraged by the repetition of my futile attempts, I throw up the game, the richer however by one fact of some value: the Calicurgus, without the least fear, descends into the Tarantula’s den and dislodges her. I imagine that things happen in the same fashion outside my cages. When expelled from her dwelling, the Spider is more timid and more vulnerable to attack. Moreover, while hampered by a narrow shaft, the operator would not wield her lancet with the precision called for by her designs. The bold irruption shows us once again, more plainly than the tussles on my table, the Lycosa’s reluctance to sink her fangs into her enemy’s body. When the two are face to face at the bottom of the lair, then or never is the moment to have it out with the foe. The Tarantula is in her own house, with all its conveniences; every nook and corner of the bastion is familiar to her. The intruder’s movements are hampered by her ignorance of the premises. Quick, my poor Lycosa, quick, a bite; and it’s all up with your persecutor! But you refrain, I know not why, and your reluctance is the saving of the rash invader. The silly Sheep does not reply to the butcher’s knife by charging with lowered horns. Can it be that you are the Pompilus’ Sheep?
My two subjects are reinstalled in my study under their wire-gauze covers, with bed of sand, reed-stump burrow and fresh honey, complete. Here they find again their first Lycosae, fed upon Locusts. Cohabitation continues for three weeks without other incidents than scuffles and threats which become less frequent day by day. No serious hostility is displayed on either side. At last the Calicurgi die: their day is over. A pitiful end after such an enthusiastic beginning.
Shall I abandon the problem? Why, not a bit of it! I have encountered greater difficulties, but they have never deterred me from a warmly- cherished project. Fortune favours the persevering. She proves as much by offering me, in September, a fortnight after the death of my Tarantula- huntresses, another Calicurgus, captured for the first time. This is the Harlequin Calicurgus (C. scurra, LEP.), who sports the same gaudy costume as the first and is almost of the same size.
Now what does this newcomer, of whom I know nothing, want? A Spider, that is certain; but which? A huntress like this will need a corpulent quarry: perhaps the Silky Epeira (E. serica), perhaps the Banded Epeira (E. fasciata), the largest Spiders in the district, next to the Tarantula. The first of these spreads her large upright net, in which Locusts are caught, from one clump of brushwood to another. I find her in the copses on the neighbouring hills. The second stretches hers across the ditches and the little streams frequented by the Dragon-flies. I find her near the Aygues, beside the irrigation-canals fed by the torrent. A couple of trips procures me the two Epeirae, whom I offer to my captive next day, both at the same time. It is for her to choose according to her taste.
The choice is soon made: the Banded Epeira is the one preferred. But she does not yield without protest. On the approach of the Wasp, she rises and assumes a defensive attitude, just like that of the Lycosa. The Calicurgus pays no attention to threats: under her harlequin’s coat, she is violent in attack and quick on her legs. There is a rapid exchange of fisticuffs; and the Epeira lies overturned on her back. The Pompilus is on top of her, belly to belly, head to head; with her legs she masters the Spider’s legs; with her mandibles she grips the cephalothorax. She curves her abdomen, bringing the tip of it beneath her; she draws her sting and…
One moment, reader, if you please. Where is the sting about to strike? From what we have learnt from the other paralysers, it will be driven into the breast, to suppress the movement of the legs. That is your opinion; it was also mine. Well, without blushing too deeply at our common and very excusable error, let us confess that the insect knows better than we do. It knows how to assure success by a preparatory manoeuvre of which you and I had never dreamt. Ah, what a school is that of the animals! Is it not true that, before striking the adversary, you should take care not to get wounded yourself? The Harlequin Pompilus does not disregard this counsel of prudence. The Epeira carries beneath her throat two sharp daggers, with a drop of poison at their points; the Calicurgus is lost if the Spider bites her. Nevertheless, her anaesthetizing demands perfect steadiness of the lancet. What is to be done in the face of this danger which might disconcert the most practised surgeon? The patient must first be disarmed and then operated on.
And in fact the Calicurgus’ sting, aimed from back to front, is driven into the Epeira’s mouth, with minute precautions and marked persistency. On the instant, the poison-fangs close lifelessly and the formidable quarry is powerless to harm. The Wasp’s abdomen then extends its arc and drives the needle behind the fourth pair of legs, on the median line, almost at the junction of the belly and the cephalothorax. At this point the skin is finer and more easily penetrable than elsewhere. The remainder of the thoracic surface is covered with a tough breast-plate which the sting would perhaps fail to perforate. The nerve-centres, the source of the leg- movements, are situated a little above the wounded point, but the back-to- front direction of the sting makes it possible to reach them. This last wound results in the paralysis of all the eight legs at once.
To enlarge upon it further would detract from the eloquence of this performance. First of all, to safeguard the operator, a stab in the mouth, that point so terribly armed, the most formidable of all; then, to safeguard the larva, a second stab in the nerve-centres of the thorax, to suppress the power of movement. I certainly suspected that the slayers of robust Spiders were endowed with special talents; but I was far from expecting their bold logic, which disarms before it paralyses. So the Tarantula-huntress must behave, who, under my bell-glasses, refused to surrender her secret. I now know what her method is; it has been divulged by a colleague. She throws the terrible Lycosa upon her back, pricks her prickers by stinging her in the mouth and then, in comfort, with a single thrust of the lancet, obtains paralysis of the legs.
I examine the Epeira immediately after the operation and the Tarantula when the Calicurgus is dragging her by one leg to her burrow, at the foot of some wall. For a little while longer, a minute at most, the Epeira convulsively moves her legs. So long as these throes continue, the Pompilus does not release her prey. She seems to watch the progress of the paralysis. With the tips of her mandibles she explores the Spider’s mouth several times over, as though to ascertain if the poison-fangs are really innocuous. When all movement subsides, the Pompilus makes ready to drag her prey elsewhere. It is then I take charge of it.
What strikes me more than anything else is the absolute inertia of the fangs, which I tickle with a straw without succeeding in rousing them from their torpor. The palpi, on the other hand, their immediate neighbours, wave at the least touch. The Epeira is placed in safety, in a flask, and undergoes a fresh examination a week later. Irritability has in part returned. Under the stimulus of a straw, I see her legs move a little, especially the lower joints, the tibiae and tarsi. The palpi are even more irritable and mobile. These different movements, however, are lacking in vigour and coordination; and the Spider cannot employ them to turn over, much less to escape. As for the poison-fangs, I stimulate them in vain: I cannot get them to open or even to stir. They are therefore profoundly paralysed and in a special manner. The peculiar insistence of the sting when the mouth was stabbed told me as much in the beginning.
At the end of September, almost a month after the operation, the Epeira is in the same condition, neither dead nor alive: the palpi still quiver when touched with a straw, but nothing else moves. At length, after six or seven weeks’ lethargy, real death supervenes, together with its comrade, putrefaction.
The Tarantula of the Ringed Calicurgus, as I take her from the owner at the moment of transportation, presents the same peculiarities. The poison-fangs are no longer irritable when tickled with my straw: a fresh proof, added to those of analogy, to show that the Lycosa, like the Epeira, has been stung in the mouth. The palpi, on the other hand, are and will be for weeks highly irritable and mobile. I wish to emphasise this point, the importance of which will be recognized presently.
I found it impossible to provoke a second attack from my Harlequin Calicurgus: the tedium of captivity did not favour the exercise of her talents. Moreover, the Epeira sometimes had something to do with her refusals; a certain ruse de guerre which was twice employed before my eyes may well have baffled the aggressor. Let me describe the incident, if only to increase our respect a little for these foolish Spiders, who are provided with perfected weapons and do not dare to make use of them against the weaker but bolder assailant.
The Epeira occupies the wall of the wire-gauze cage, with her eight legs wide-spread upon the trelliswork; the Calicurgus is wheeling round the top of the dome. Seized with panic at the sight of the approaching enemy, the Spider drops to the ground, with her belly upwards and her legs gathered together. The other dashes forward, clasps her round the body, explores her and prepares to sting her in the mouth. But she does not bare her weapon. I see her bending attentively over the poisoned fangs, as though to investigate their terrible mechanism; she then goes away. The Spider is still motionless, so much so that I really believe her dead, paralysed unknown to me, at a moment when I was not looking. I take her from the cage to examine her comfortably. No sooner is she placed on the table than behold, she comes to life again and promptly scampers off! The cunning creature was shamming death beneath the Wasp’s stiletto, so artfully that I was taken in. She deceived an enemy more cunning than myself, the Pompilus, who inspected her very closely and took her for a corpse unworthy of her dagger. Perhaps the simple creature, like the Bear in the fable of old, already noticed the smell of high meat.
This ruse, if ruse it be, appears to me more often than not to turn to the disadvantage of the Spider, whether Tarantula, Epeira or another. The Calicurgus who has just put the Spider on her back after a brisk fight knows quite well that her prostrate foe is not dead. The latter, thinking to protect itself, simulates the inertia of a corpse; the assailant profits by this to deliver her most perilous blow, the stab in the mouth. Were the fangs, each tipped with its drop of poison, to open then; were they to snap, to give a desperate bite, the Pompilus would not dare to expose the tip of her abdomen to their deadly scratch. The shamming of death is exactly what enables the huntress to succeed in her dangerous operation. They say, O guileless Epeirae, that the struggle for life has taught you to adopt this inert attitude for purposes of defence. Well, the struggle for life was a very bad counsellor. Trust rather to common sense and learn, by degrees, at your own cost, that to hit back, above all if you can do so promptly, is still the best way to intimidate the enemy. (Fabre does not believe in the actual shamming of death by animals. Cf. “The Glow-worm and Other Beetles,” by J. Henri Fabre, translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chapters 8 to 15.–Translator’s Note.)
The remainder of my observations on these insects under glass is little more than a long series of failures. Of two operators on Weevils, one, the Sandy Cerceris (C. arenaria), persistently scorned the victims offered; the other, Ferrero’s Cerceris (C. Ferreri), allowed herself to be empted after two days’ captivity. Her tactical method, as I expected, is precisely that of the Cleonus-huntress, the Great Cerceris, with whom my investigations commenced. When confronted with the Acorn-weevil, she seizes the insect by the snout, which is immensely long and shaped like a pipe-stem, and plants her sting in its body to the rear of the prothorax, between the first and second pair of legs. It is needless to insist: the spoiler of the Cleoni has taught us enough about this mode of operation and its results.
None of the Bembex-wasps, whether chosen among the huntresses of the Gadfly or among the lovers of the House-fly rabble, satisfied my aspirations. Their method is as unknown to me now as at the distant period when I used to watch it in the Bois des Issards. (Cf. “The Hunting Wasps”: chapters 14 to 18.–Translator’s Note.) Their impetuous flight, their love of long journeys are incompatible with captivity. Stunned by colliding with the walls of their glass or wire-gauze prison, they all perish within twenty- four hours. Swifter in their movements and apparently satisfied with their honeyed thistle-heads, the Spheges, huntresses of Crickets or Ephippigers, die as quickly of nostalgia. All I offer them leaves them indifferent.
Nor can I get anything out of the Eumenes, notably the biggest of them, the builder of gravel cupolas, Amedeus’ Eumenes. All the Pompili, except the Harlequin Calicurgus, refuse my Spiders. The Palarus, who preys upon an indefinite number of the Hymenopteron clan, refuses to tell me if she drinks the honey of the Bees, as does the Philanthus, or if she lets the others go without manipulating them to make them disgorge. The Tachytes do not vouchsafe their Locusts a glance; Stizus ruficornis promptly gives up the ghost, disdaining the Praying Mantis which I provide for her.
What is the use of continuing this list of checks? The rule may be gathered from these few examples: occasional successes and many failures. What can be the reason? With the exception of the Philanthus, tempted from time to time by a bumper of honey, the predatory Wasps do not hunt on their own account; they have their victualling-time, when the egg-laying is imminent, when the family calls for food. Outside these periods, the finest heads of game might well leave these nectar-bibbers indifferent. I am careful therefore, as far as possible, to capture my subjects at the proper season; I give preference to mothers caught upon the threshold of the burrow with their prey between their legs. This diligence of mine by no means always succeeds. There are demoralized insects which, once under glass, even after a brief delay, no longer care about the equivalent of their prize.
All the species do not perhaps pursue their game with the same ardour; mood and temperament are more variable even than conformation. To these factors, which are of the nicest order, we may add that of the hour, which is often unfavourable when the subject is caught at haphazard on the flowers, and we shall have more than enough to explain the frequency of the failures. After all, I must beware of representing my failures as the rule: what does not succeed one day may very well succeed another day, under different conditions. With perseverance and a little skill, any one who cares to continue these interesting studies will, I am sure, fill up many gaps. The problem is difficult but not impossible.
I will not quit my bell-jars without saying a word on the entomological tact of the captives when they decide to attack. One of the pluckiest of my subjects, the Hairy Ammophila, was not always provided with the hereditary dish of her family, the Grey Worm. I offered her indiscriminately any bare- skinned caterpillars that I chanced to find. Some were yellow, some green, some brown with white edges. All were accepted without hesitation, provided that they were of suitable size. Tasty game was recognized wonderfully under very dissimilar liveries. But a young Zeuzera-caterpillar, dug out of the branches of a lilac-tree, and a silkworm of small dimensions were definitely refused. The over-fed products of our silkworm-nurseries and the mystery-loving caterpillar which gnaws the inner wood of the lilac inspired her with suspicion and disgust, despite their bare skin, which favoured the sting, and their shape, which was similar to that of the victims accepted.
Another ardent huntress, the Interrupted Scolia, refused the Cetonia-grub, which is of like habits with the Anoxia-larva; the Two-banded Scolia also refused the Anoxia. The Philanthus, the headlong murderess of Bees, saw through my trickery when I confronted her with the Virgilian Bee, the Eristalis (E. tenax). She, a Philanthus, take this Fly for a Bee! What next! The popular idea is mistaken; antiquity too is mistaken, as witness the “Georgics,” which make the putrid remains of a sacrificed Bull give birth to a swarm; but the Wasp makes no mistake. In her eyes, which see farther than ours, the Eristalis is an odious Dipteron, a lover of corruption, and nothing more.
CHAPTER 14. OBJECTIONS AND REJOINDERS.
No idea of any scope can begin its soaring flight but straightway the curmudgeons are after it, eager to break its wings and to stamp the wounded thing under foot. My discovery of the surgical methods that give the Hunting Wasps their preserved foodstuffs has undergone the common rule. Let theories be discussed, by all means: the realm of the imagination is an untilled domain, in which every one is free to plant his own conceptions. But realities are not open to discussion. It is a bad policy to deny facts with no more authority than one’s wish to find them untrue. No one that I know of has impugned by contrary observations what I have so long been saying about the anatomical instinct of the Wasps that hunt their prey; instead, I am met with arguments. Mercy on us! First use your eyes and then you shall have leave to argue! And, to persuade people to use their eyes, I mean to reply, since we have time to spare, to the objections which have been or may be raised. Of course, I pass over in silence those in which childish disparagement shows its nose too plainly.
The sting, I am told, is directed at one point rather than another because that is the only vulnerable point. The insect cannot choose what wound it will inflict; it stings where it must. Its wonderful operative method is the necessary result of the victim’s structure. Let us first, if we attach any importance to lucidity, come to an understanding about the word “vulnerable.” Do you mean by this that the point or rather points wounded by the sting are the only points at which a lesion will suddenly cause either death or paralysis? If so, I share your opinion; not only do I share it, but I was the first to proclaim it. My whole thesis is contained in that. Yes, a hundred times yes, the points wounded are the only vulnerable points; they are even very vulnerable; they are the only points which lend themselves to the infliction of sudden death or else paralysis, according to the operator’s intention.
But this is not how you understand the matter: you mean accessible to the sting, in a word, penetrable. Here we part company. I have against me, I admit, the Weevils and the Buprestes of the Cerceres. These mailed ones hardly give the sting a chance, save behind the prothorax, the point at which the lancet is actually directed. If I were one to stand on trifles, I might observe that in front of the prothorax, under the throat, is an accessible spot and that the Cerceres will have nothing to do with it. But let us proceed; I give up the horn-clad Beetle.
What are we to say of the Grey Worm and other caterpillars beloved of the Ammophilae? Here are victims accessible to the sting underneath, on the back, on the sides, fore and aft, everywhere with the same facility, excepting the top of the head. And of this infinity of points, which are equally penetrable, the Wasp selects ten, always the same, differing in no way from the rest, unless it be by the close proximity of the nerve- centres. What are we to say of the Cetonia- and Anoxia-larvae, which are always attacked in the first thoracic segment, after long and painful struggles, when the assailant can sting the grub freely at whatever point she chooses, since it is quite naked and offers no greater resistance to the lancet at one point than at another?
What are we to think of the Sphex’ Crickets and Ephippigers, stabbed three times on the side of the thorax, which is fairly well defended, whereas the abdomen, soft and bulky, into which the sting would sink like a needle into a pat of butter, is neglected? Do not let us forget the Philanthus, who takes no account either of the fissures beneath the abdominal plates or of the wide hiatus behind the corselet, but plunges her weapon, at the base of the throat, through a gap of a fraction of a millimetre. Let us just mention the Mantis-hunting Tachytes. Does she make for the most undefended point when she stabs, first of all, at its base, the Mantis’ dreadful engine–the arm-pieces each fitted with a double saw–at the risk of being seized, transfixed and crunched on the spot if she misses her blow? Why does she not strike at the creature’s long abdomen? That would be quite easy and free from danger.
And the Calicurgi, if you please. Are they also unskilled duelists, plunging the dirk into the only easily accessible point, when their very first move is to paralyse the poison-fangs? If there is one point about the Tarantula and the Epeira that is dangerous and difficult to attack, it is certainly the mouth which bites with its two poisoned harpoons. And these desperadoes dare to brave that deadly trap! Why do they not follow your judicious advice? They should sting the plump belly, which is wholly unprotected. They do not; and they have their reasons, as have the others.
All, from the first to the last, show us, clear as water from the rock, that the outer structure of the victims operated on counts for nothing in the method of operating. This is determined by the inner anatomy. The points wounded are not stung because they are the only points penetrable by the lancet; they are stung because they fulfil an important condition, without which penetrability loses its value. This condition is none other than the immediate proximity of the nerve-centres whose influence has to be suppressed. When at close quarters with her prey, whether soft or armour- clad, the huntress behaves as if she understood the nervous system better than any of us. The thoughtless objection about the only penetrable points is, I hope, swept aside forever.
I am also told:
“It is possible, if it comes to that, for the sting to be delivered in the neighbourhood of the nerve-centres; in a victim at most three or four centimetres long, distances are very small. But a casual there or thereabouts is a very different thing from the precision of which you speak.”
Oh, they are “thereabouts,” are they? We shall see! You want figures, millimetres, fractions? You shall have them!
First I call to witness the Interrupted Scolia. If the reader no longer has her method of operating in mind, I will beg him to refresh his memory. The two adversaries, in the preliminary conflict, may be fairly well represented by two rings interlocked not in the same plane but at right angles. The Scolia grips a point of the Anoxia-grub’s thorax; she curves her body underneath it and, while encircling the grub, gropes with the tip of her abdomen along the median line of the larva’s neck. Owing to her transversal position, the assailant is now free to aim her weapon in a slightly slanting direction, whether towards the head or towards the thorax, at the same point of entry in the larva’s throat. Between the two opposite slants of the sting, which is itself very short, what can the distance be? Two millimetres (.078 inch.–Translator’s Note.), perhaps less. That is very little. No matter: let the operator make a mistake of this length–negligible, you may tell me–let the sting slant towards the head instead of slanting towards the thorax; and the result of the operation will be entirely different. With a slant towards the head, the cerebral ganglia are wounded and their lesion causes sudden death. This is the stroke of the Philanthus, who kills her Bee by stinging her from below, under the chin. The Scolia needed a motionless but not dead victim, one that would supply fresh victuals; she will now have only a corpse, which will soon go bad and poison the larva.
With a slant towards the thorax, the sting wounds the little mass of nerve- cells in the thorax. This is the regulation stroke, the one which will induce paralysis and leave the small amount of life needed to keep the provisions fresh. A millimetre higher kills; a millimetre lower paralyses. On this tiny deviation the salvation of the Scolia race depends. You need not fear that the operator will make any mistake in this micrometrical performance: her sting always slants towards the thorax, although the opposite inclination is just as practicable and easy. What would be the outcome of a there or thereabouts under these conditions? Very often a corpse, a form of food fatal to the grub.
The Two-banded Scolia stings a little lower down, on the line of demarcation between the first two thoracic segments. Her position is likewise transversal in relation to the Cetonia-grub; but the distance of the cervical ganglia from the point where the sting enters would possibly not allow the weapon turned towards the head to inflict a lesion followed by sudden death as in the above instance. I am calling this witness with another object. It is extremely unusual for the operator, no matter what her prey or her method, to make a slight mistake and sting merely somewhere near the requisite point. I see them all groping with the tip of the abdomen, sometimes seeking persistently, before unsheathing. They thrust only when the point beneath the sting is precisely that at which the wound will produce its full effect. The Two-banded Scolia in particular will struggle with the Cetonia-grub for half an hour at a time to enable herself to drive in the stiletto at the right spot.
Wearied by an endless scuffle, one of my captives committed before my eyes a slight blunder, an unprecedented thing. Her weapon entered a little to one side, not quite a millimetre from the central point and still, of course, on the line of demarcation between the first two thoracic segments. I at once laid hold of the precious specimen, which was to teach me curious matters about the effects of an ill-delivered stroke. If I myself had made the insect sting at this or that point, there would have been no particular interest in it: the Scolia, held between the finger-tips, would wound at random, like a Bee defending herself; her undirected sting would inject the poison at haphazard. But here everything happened by rule, except for the little error of position.
Well, the victim of this clumsy operation has its legs paralysed only on the left side, the side towards which the weapon was deflected; it is a case of hemiplegia. The legs on the right side move. If the operation had been performed in the normal fashion the result would have been sudden inertia of all six legs. The hemiplegia, it is true does not last long. The torpor of the left half rapidly gains the right half of the body and the creature lies motionless, incapable of burying itself in the mould, without, however, realizing the conditions indispensable to the safety of the egg or the young grub. If I seize one of its legs or a point of the skin with the tweezers, it suddenly shrivels and curls up and swells out again, as it does when in complete possession of its energies. What would become of an egg laid on such victuals? At the first closing of this ruthless vice, at the first contraction, it would be crushed, or at least detached from its place; and any egg removed from the point where the mother has fastened it is bound to perish. It needs, on the Cetonia’s abdomen, a yielding support which the bites of the new-born larva will not set aquiver. The slightly eccentric sting gives none of this soft mass of fat, always outstretched and quiescent. Only on the following day, after the torpor has made progress, does the larva become suitably inert and limp. But it is too late; and in the meantime the egg would be in serious danger on this half-paralysed victim. The sting, by straying less than a millimetre, would leave the Scolia without progeny.
I promised fractions. Here they are. Let us consider the Tarantula and the Epeira on whom the Calicurgi have just operated. The first thrust of the sting is delivered in the mouth. In both victims the poison-fangs are absolutely lifeless: tickling with a bit of straw never once succeeds in making them open. On the other hand, the palpi, their very near neighbours, their adjuncts as it were, possess their customary mobility. Without any previous touches, they keep on moving for weeks. In entering the mouth the sting did not reach the cervical ganglia, or sudden death would have ensued and we should have before our eyes corpses which would go bad in a few days, instead of fresh carcases in which traces of life remain manifest for a long time. The cephalic nerve-centres have been spared.
What is wounded then, to procure this profound inertia of the poison-fangs? I regret that my anatomical knowledge leaves me undecided on this point. Are the fangs actuated by a special ganglion? Are they actuated by fibres issuing from centres exercising further functions? I leave to anatomists equipped with more delicate instruments than I the task of elucidating this obscure question. The second conjecture appears to me the more probable, because of the palpi, whose nerves, it seems to me, must have the same origin as those of the fangs. Basing our argument on this latter hypothesis, we see that the Calicurgus has only one means of suppressing the movement of the poisoned pincers without affecting the mobility of the palpi, above all without injuring the cephalic centres and thus producing death, namely, to reach with her sting the two fibres actuating the fangs, fibres as fine as a hair.
I insist upon this point. Despite their extreme delicacy, these two filaments must be injured directly; for, if it were enough for the sting to inject its poison “there or thereabouts,” the nerves of the palpi, so close to the first, would undergo the same intoxication as the adjacent region and would leave those appendages motionless. The palpi move; they retain their mobility for a considerable period; the action of the poison, therefore, is evidently situated in the nerves of the fangs. There are two of these nerve-filaments, very fine, very difficult to discover, even by the professional anatomist. The Calicurgus has to reach them one after the other, to moisten them with her poison, possibly to transfix them, in any case to operate upon them in a very restricted manner; so that the diffusion of the virus may not involve the adjoining parts. The extreme delicacy of this surgery explains why the weapon remains in the mouth so long; the point of the sting is seeking and eventually finds the tiny fraction of a millimetre where the poison is to act. This is what we learn from the movements of the palpi close to the motionless fangs; they tell us that the Calicurgi are vivisectors of alarming accuracy.
If we accept the hypothesis of a special nerve-centre for the mandibles, the difficulty would be a little less, without detracting from the operator’s talent. The sting would then have to reach a barely visible speck, an atom in which we should hardly find room for the point of a needle. This is the difficulty which the various paralysers solve in ordinary practice. Do they actually wound with their dirks the ganglion whose influence is to be done away with? It is possible, but I have tried no test to make sure, the infinitely tiny wound appearing to be too difficult to detect with the optical instruments at my disposal. Do they confine themselves to lodging their drop of poison on the ganglion, or at all events in its immediate neighbourhood? I do not say no.
I declare moreover, that, to provoke lightning paralysis, the poison, if it is not deposited inside the mass of nervous substance, must act from somewhere very near. This assertion is merely echoing what the Two-banded Scolia has just shown us: her Cetonia-grub, stung less than a millimetre from the regular spot, did not become motionless until next day. There is no doubt, judging by this instance, that the effect of the virus spreads in all directions within a radius of some extent; but this diffusion is not enough for the operator, who requires for her egg, which is soon to be laid, absolute safety from the very first.
On the other hand, the actions of the paralysers argue a precise search for the ganglia, at all events for the first thoracic ganglion, the most important of all. The Hairy Ammophila, among others, affords us an excellent example of this method. Her three thrusts in the caterpillar’s thorax and especially the last, between the first and second pair of legs, are more prolonged than the stabs distributed among the abdominal ganglia. Everything justifies us in believing that, for these decisive inoculations, the sting seeks out the corresponding ganglion and acts only when it finds it under its point. On the abdomen this peculiar insistence ceases; the sting passes swiftly from one segment to another. For these segments, which are less dangerous, the Ammophila perhaps relies on the diffusion of her venom; in any case, the injections, though hastily administered, do not diverge from a close vicinity of the ganglia, for their field of action is very limited, as is proved by the number of inoculations necessary to induce complete torpor, or, more simply, by the following example.
A Grey Worm which had just received its first sting on the third thoracic segment repulses the Ammophila and with a jerk hurls her to a distance. I profit by the occasion and take hold of the grub. The legs of this third segment only are paralysed; the others retain their usual mobility. However helpless in the two injured legs, the animal can walk very well; it buries itself in the earth, returning to the surface at night to gnaw the stump of lettuce with which I have served it. For a fortnight my paralytic retains perfect liberty of action, except in the segment operated on; then it dies, not of its wound but accidentally. All this time the effect of the poison has not spread beyond the inoculated segment.
At any point where the sting enters, anatomy informs us of the presence of a nervous nucleus. Is this centre directly smitten by the weapon? Or is it poisoned with virus, from a very small distance, by the progressive impregnation of the neighbouring tissues? This is the doubtful point, though it does not in any way invalidate the precision of the abdominal injections, which are comparatively neglected. As for those in the caterpillar’s thorax, their precision is beyond dispute. After the Ammophilae, the Scoliae and, above all, the Calicurgi, is it really necessary to bring into court yet other witnesses, who would all swear that, with modifications of detail, the movement of their lancet is strictly regulated by the nervous system of the prey? This ought to be enough. The proof is established for those who have ears to hear with.
Others delight in objections whose oddity surprises me. They see in the poison of the Hunting Wasps an antiseptic liquid and in victuals stored in their burrows preserved meats which are kept fresh not by a remnant of life but by the virus and its microbes. Come, my learned masters, let us just talk the matter over, between ourselves. Have you ever seen the larder of a skilled Hunting Wasp, a Sphex for instance, a Scolia, an Ammophila? You haven’t, have you? I thought as much. Yet it would be better to begin by doing so, before bringing the preservative microbe on the scene. The slightest examination would have shown you that the victuals cannot be compared exactly with smoked hams. The thing moves, therefore it is not dead. There you have the whole matter, in its artless simplicity. The palpi move, the mandibles open and shut, the tarsi quiver, the antennae and the abdominal filaments wave to and fro, the abdomen throbs, the intestine rejects its contents, the animal reacts to the stimulus of a needle, all of which signs are hardly compatible with the idea of pickled meat.
Have you had the curiosity to look through the pages in which I set forth the detailed results of my observations? You haven’t, have you? Again, I thought as much. It is a pity. You would there find, in particular, the history of certain Ephippigers who, after being stung by the Sphex according to rule, were reared by myself by hand. You must agree that these are queer preserves to be produced by the use of an antiseptic fluid. They accept the mouthfuls which I offer them on the tip of a straw; they feed, they sit up and take nourishment. I shall never live to see tinned sardines doing as much.
I will avoid tedious repetition and content myself with adding to my old sheaf of proofs a few facts which have not yet been related. The Nest- building Odynerus showed us in her cells a few Chrysomela-larvae fixed by the hinder part to the side of the reed. The grub fastens itself in this way to the poplar-leaf to obtain a purchase when the moment has come for leaving the larval slough. Do not these preparations for the nymphosis tell us plainly that the creature is not dead?
The Hairy Ammophila affords us an even better example. A number of caterpillars operated on before my eyes attained, some sooner, some later, the chrysalis stage. My notes are explicit on the subject of some of them, taken on Verbascum sinuatum. Sacrificed on the 14th of April, they were still irritable when tickled with a straw a fortnight after. A little later, the pale-green colouring of the early stages is replaced by a reddish brown, except on two or three segments of the median ventral surface. The skin wrinkles and splits, but does not come detached of its own accord. I can easily remove it in shreds. Under this slough appears the firm, chestnut-brown horn integument of the chrysalis. The development of the nymphosis is so correct that for a moment the crazy hope occurs to me that I may see a Turnip-moth come out of this mummy, the victim of a dozen dagger-thrusts. For the rest, there is no attempt at spinning a cocoon, no jet of silky threads flung out by the caterpillar before turning into a chrysalis. Perhaps under normal conditions metamorphosis takes place without this protection. However, the moth whom I expected to see was beyond the limits of the possible. In the middle of May, a month after the operation on the caterpillars, my three chrysalids, still incomplete underneath, in the three or four middle segments, withered and at last went mouldy. Is the evidence conclusive this time? Who can conceive such a silly idea as that a prey really dead, a corpse preserved from putrefaction by an antiseptic, could contain what is perhaps the most delicate work of life, the development of the grub into the perfect insect?
The truth must be driven into recalcitrant brains with great blows of the sledge-hammer. Let us once more employ this method. In September I unearth from a heap of mould five Cetonia-grubs, paralysed by the Two-banded Scolia and bearing on the abdomen the as yet unhatched egg of the Wasp. I remove the eggs and install the helpless creatures on a bed of leaf-mould with a glass cover. I propose to see how long I can keep them fresh, able to move their mandibles and palpi. Already the victims of various Hunting Wasps had instructed me on a similar matter; I knew that traces of life linger for two, three, four weeks and longer. For instance, I had seen the Ephippigers of the Languedocian Sphex continue the waving of their antennae and their paralytic shudders for forty days of artificial feeding by hand; and I used to wonder whether the more or less early death of the other victims was not due to lack of nourishment quite as much as to the operation which they had undergone. However, the insect in its adult form usually has a very brief existence. It soon dies, killed by the mere fact of living, without any other accident. A larva is preferable for these investigations. Its constitution is livelier, better able to support protracted abstinence, above all during the winter torpor. The Cetonia-grub, a regular lump of bacon, nourished by its own fat during the winter season, fulfils the needful conditions to perfection. What will become of it, lying belly upwards on its bed of leaf-mould? Will it survive the winter?
At the end of a month, three of my grubs turn brown and lapse into rottenness. The other two keep perfectly fresh and move their antennae and palpi at the touch of a straw. The cold weather comes and tickling no longer elicits these signs of life. The inertia is complete; nevertheless their appearance remains excellent, without a trace of the brownish tinge, the sign of deterioration. At the return of the warm weather, in the middle of May, there is a sort of resurrection. I find my two larvae turned over, belly downwards; much more: they are half-buried in the mould. When teased, they coil up lazily; they move their legs as well as their mouth-parts, but slowly and without vigour. Then their strength seems to revive. The convalescent, resuscitated grubs dig with clumsy efforts into their bed of mould; they dive into it and disappear to a depth of about two inches. Recovery seems to be imminent.
I am mistaken. In June I unearth the invalids. This time, the larvae are dead; their brown colour tells me as much. I expected better things. Never mind: this is no trifling success. For nine months, nine long months, the grubs stabbed by the Scolia kept fresh and alive. Towards the end, torpor was dispelled, strength and movement returned, sufficiently to enable them to leave the surface where I had placed them and to regain the depths by boring a passage through the soil. I really think that after this resurrection there will be no more talk of antiseptics, unless and until tinned Herrings begin to frolic in their brine. (The subject of this and the preceding chapters is continued in an essay entitled “The Poison of the Bee” for which cf. “Bramble-bees and Others”: chapter 11.–Translator’s Note.)
INDEX.
Acorn-weevil.
Amedeus’ Eumenes.
Ameles decolor (see Grey Mantis).
Ammophila (see also the varieties below).
Ammophila hursuta (see Hairy Ammophila).
Ammophila holoserica (see Silky Ammophila).
Ammophila Julii (see Jules’ Ammophila).
Ammophila sabulosa (see Sandy Ammophila).
Anathema Tachytes.
Anoxia (see also the varieties below).
Anoxia australis.
Anoxia matutinalis (see Morning Anoxia).
Anoxia villosa (see Shaggy Anoxia).
Ant.
Anthidium (see also the varieties below).
Anthidium bellicosum.
Anthidium scapulare.
Anthidium septemdentatum.
Anthophora.
Anthrax (see also Anthrax sinuata).
Anthrax sinuata.
Ape.
Aphis (see Plant-louse).
Ass.
Astata.
Balaninus (see also Balaninus glandum).
Balaninus glandum (see Acorn-weevil).
Banded Epeira.
Bat.
Bee (see also Bumble-bee, Hive-bee, Mason-bee).
Bee-eating Philanthus.
Beetle.
Bembex (see also the varieties below).
Bembex bidentata (see Two-pronged Bembex).
Bembex rostrata (see Rostrate Bembex).
Black, Adam and Charles.
Black-bellied Tarantula.
Black Spider (see Cellar Spider).
Black Tachytes.
Blister-beetle (see Oil-beetle).
Bluebottle.
Blue Osmia.
Bombylius.
Boyle, Robert.
Brachycera.
Brachyderes pubescens (see Pubescent Brachyderes).
Breguet, Louis.
Brillat-Savarin, Anthelme.
Brown-winged Solenius.
Bug.
Bull.
Bull, the author’s Dog.
Bullock.
Bumble-bee.
Buprestis.
Buprestis-hunting Cerceris.
Burnt Zonitis.
Butterfly.
Cabbage Pieris.
Calicurgus (see Pompilus and the varieties below).
Calicurgus annulatus (see Ringed Calicurgus).
Calicurgus scurra (see Harlequin Calicurgus).
Callot, Jacques.
Cantharides.
Carpenter-bee.
Cellar Spider.
Century co.
Cerceris (see also Buprestis-hunting Cerceris and the varieties below).
Cerceris arenaria (see Sand Cerceris).
Cerceris Ferreri (see Ferrero’s Cerceris).
Cerceris ornata (see Ornate Cerceris).
Cerceris tuberculata (see Great Cerceris).
Cerocoma.
Cetonia (see also the varieties below).
Cetonia aurata (see Golden Cetonia).
Cetonia morio.
Chaffinch.
Chalicodoma (see Mason-bee).
Chaoucho-grapaou (see Nightjar).
Chimpanzee.
Chrysomela populi (see Poplar Leaf-beetle).
Cicada.
Cicadella.
Cleonus (see also Cleonus ophthalmicus).
Cleonus ophthalmicus.
Cneorhinus.
Cockchafer.
Colpa interrupta (see Interrupted Scolia).
Common Cockchafer (see Cockchafer).
Common Wasp.
Cotton-bee (see Anthidium scapulare).
Cow.
Crab.
Crabro (see Hornet).
Crabro chrysostomus (see Golden-mouthed Hornet).
Cricket.
Crowned Philanthus.
Cuckoo.
Darwin, Charles Robert.
David the painter.
David, Felicien Cesar.
Death’s-head Hawk-moth.
Devilkin (see Empusa).
Dicranura vinula.
Dioxys cincta (see Girdled Dioxys).
Dog (see also Bull).
Drone-fly.
Dufour, Jean Marie Leon.
Duges, Louis Antoine.
Earth-worm.
Eight-spotted Pompilus.
Empusa.
Epeira (see also the varieties below).
Epeira fasciata (see Banded Epeira).
Epeira serica (see Silky Epeira).
Ephippiger.
Eristalis E. tenax (see Drone-fly).
Eucera.
Euchlora Julii.
Eumenes (see also Amedeus Eumenes).
Fabricius, Johan Christian.
Favier, the author’s factotum.
Ferrero’s Cerceris.
Field-mouse.
Fly (see also Gad-fly, House-fly).
Fox.
Frog.
Gad-fly.
Galileo.
Garden Scolia.
Garden Spider (see Epeira).
Geonomus.
Girdled Dioxys.
Gnat.
Goat.
Goatsucker (see Nightjar).
Golden Cetonia.
Golden-crested Wren.
Golden-mouthed Hornet.
Golden Osmia.
Gorilla.
Grasshopper.
Great Cellar Spider (see Cellar Spider).
Great Cerceris.
Grey Mantis.
Grey Worm.
Hairy Ammophila.
Halictus.
Harlequin Calicurgus.
Hedgehog.
Helophilus pendulus.
Hemorrhoidal Scolia.
Hen.
Herring.
Hive-bee.
Hog.
Hornet (see also Golden-mouthed Hornet).
House-fly.
Interrupted Scolia.
Jules, Ammophila.
Klug.
Lalande, Joseph Jerome Le Francais de.
Lamellicorn.
Languedocian Sphex.
Lark.
Latreille, Pierre Andre.
Leucopsis gigas, L. grandis.
Lily-beetle.
Linnet.
Locust.
Looper.
Lycosa (see Black-bellied Tarantula).
Macmillan Co.
Mantis (see also Grey Mantis, Praying Mantis).
Mantis-hunting Tachytes (see Mantis-killing Tachytes).
Mantis-killing Tachytes.
Mariotte, Edme.
Mason-bee (see also the Anthophora and the varieties below).
Mason-bee of the Pebbles (see Mason-bee of the Walls).
Mason-bee of the Sheds.
Mason-bee of the Shrubs.
Mason-bee of the Walls.
Measuring-worm (see Looper).
Megachile sericans.
Melanophora.
Meloe (see Oil-beetle).
Miall, Bernard.
Midge.
Mithradates VI.
Mole.
Mole-cricket.
Monkey.
Monoceros (see Oryctes nasicornis).
Morning Anoxia.
Mosquito.
Moth.
Mule.
Muscid (see House-fly).
Mylabris.
Narbonne Lycosa (see Black-bellied Tarantula).
Nest-building Odynerus.
Nightjar.
Nut-weevil.
Odynerus (see also Nest-building Odynerus).
Oil-beetle.
Ornate Cerceris.
Oryctes nasicornis.
Oryctes Silenus.
Osmia (see also the varieties below).
Osmia cyanea (see Blue Osmia).
Osmia cyanoxantha.
Osmia Latreillii (see Latreille’s Osmia).
Osmia parvula (see Tiny Osmia).
Osmia tricornis (see Three-horned Osmia).
Ostrich.
Otiorhynchus.
Palarus (see also Palarus flavipes).
Palarus flavipes.
Pangonia.
Panzer’s Tachytes.
Paragus.
Pascal, Blaise.
Passerini.
Pea-weevil.
Pelopaeus.
Pentodon punctatus.
Perez, J.
Phaneropteron falcata.
Philanthus (see also the varieties below).
Philanthus apivorus (see Bee-eating Philanthus).
Philanthus coronatus (see Crowned Philanthus).
Philanthus raptor (see Robber Philanthus).
Phynotomus.
Pieris (see Cabbage Pieris).
Pig.
Pine-chafer.
Pithecanthropus.
Plant-louse.
Pompilus (see also the varieties below).
Pompilus annulatus (see Ringed Calicurgus).
Pompilus apicalis.
Pompilus octopunctatus (see Eight-spotted Pompilus).
Poplar Leaf-Beetle.
Praying Mantis.
Pubescent Brachyderes.
Rat.
Resin-bee (see Anthidium bellicosum, Anthidium septemdentatum).
Rhinoceros Beetle (see Oryctes nasicornis).
Rhynchites betuleti.
Ringed Calicurgus.
Ringed Pompilus (see Ringed Calicurgus).
Robber Philanthus.
Robber-fly.
Robin.
Romanes, George John.
Rose-chafer (see Cetonia, Golden Cetonia).
Rostrate Bembex.
Sand Cerceris.
Sandy Ammophila.
Sapyga punctata (see Spotted Sapyga).
Sarcophaga.
Scarabaeid.
Scarabaeus pentodon.
Scolia (see also the varieties below).
Scolia bifasciata (see Two-banded Scolia).
Scolia haemorrhoidalis (see Hemorrhoidal Scolia).
Scolia hortorum (see Garden Scolia).
Scolia interrupta (see Interrupted Scolia).
Screech-owl.
Seal.
Segestria perfidia (see Cellar Spider).
Shaggy Anoxia.
Sheep.
Silkworm.
Silky Ammophila.
Silky Epeira.
Silky Leaf-cutter (see Megachile sericans).
Sitones.
Skua.
Slug.
Snail.
Socrates.
Solenius fascipennis (see Brown-winged Solenius).
Solenius vagus (see Wandering Solenius).
Sparrow.
Sparrow-hawk.
Sphaerophoria.
Sphex (see also Languedocian Sphex, White-banded Sphex, Yellow-winged Sphex.)
Spider (see also Black-bellied Tarantula, Cellar Spider, Epeira.
Spotted Sapyga.
Spurge Hawk-moth.
Stizus (see also the varieties below).
Stizus ruficornis.
Stizus tridentatus.
Strophosomus.
Swallow.
Swammerdam, Jan.
Syritta perpens.
Syrphus.
Tachytes (see also Mantis-killing Tachytes and the varieties below).
Tachytes anathema (see Anathema Tachytes).
Tachytes nigra (see Black Tachytes).
Tachytes Panzeri (see Panzer’s Tachytes).
Tachytes tarsina (see Tarsal Tachytes).
Tachytes unicolor.
Tarantula (see Black-bellied Tarantula).
Tarsal Bembex.
Tarsal Tachytes.
Teixeira de Mattos, Alexander.
Three-horned Osmia.
Tiny Osmia.
Toad.
Toricelli, Evangelista.
Toussenel, Alphonse.
Turkey.
Turnip Moth.
Two-banded Scolia.
Two-pronged Bembex.
Unwin, T. Fisher, Ltd.
Vespa crabro (see Hornet).
Virgilian Bee, Virgil’s Bee (see Drone-fly).
Wandering Solenius.
Wasp (see Common Wasp).
Weevil (see also Acorn-weevil, Nut-weevil, Pea-weevil).
Whale.
Whippoorwill (see Nightjar).
White-banded Sphex.
White Worm.
Wolf.
Yellow-winged Sphex.
Zeuzera.
Zonitis praeusta (see Burnt Zonitis).