e the proper time at
such a point, the victim becomes putrid, which promptly causes death
by poisoning in the consumer. When diverted from its plan of attack,
deprived of its clue, the larva is not always able to rediscover the
lawful morsels in good time and is killed by the decomposition of its
badly dissected prey. What will happen if the experimenter gives it a
game to which it is not accustomed? Not knowing how to eat it according
to rule, the larva will kill it; and by next day the victuals will have
become so much toxic putrescence. I have already told how I found it
impossible to rear the Two-banded Scolia on Oryctes-larvae, fastened
down to deprive them of movement, or even on Ephippigers, paralysed by
the Languedocian Sphex. In both cases the new diet was accepted without
hesitation, a proof that it suited the nurseling; but in a day or two
putrescence supervened and the Scolia perished on the fetid morsel. The
method of preserving the Ephippiger, so well known to the Sphex, was
unknown to my boarder; in this was enough to convert a delicious food
into poison.

Even so did my other attempts miscarry wretchedly, attempts at feeding
with the single dish consisting of one big head of game to replace the
normal ration. Only one success is recorded in my notebooks, but that
was so difficult that I would not undertake to obtain it a second time.
I succeeded in feeding the larva of the Hairy Ammophila with an adult
black Cricket, who was accepted as readily as the natural game, the
caterpillar.

To avoid putrefaction of victuals which last overlong and are not
consumed according to the method indispensable to their preservation, I
employ small game, each piece of which can be finished by the larva at a
single sitting, or at most in a single day. It matters little then that
the victim is slashed and dismembered at random; decomposition has no
time to seize upon its still quivering tissues. This is the procedure
of those larvae which gulp down their food, snapping at random without
distinguishing one part from another, such as the Bembex-larvae, which
finish the Fly into which they have bitten before beginning another in
the heap, or the Cerceris-larvae, which drain their Weevils methodically
one after another. With the first strokes of the mandibles the victim
broached may be mortally wounded. This is no disadvantage: a brief spell
suffices to make use of the corpse, which is saved from putrefaction by
being promptl