ompromising the lingering
vitality which saves the insect that is being devoured from going bad
and, at the same time, I should be disturbing the delicate art of the
devouring insect, which, if removed from the lode which it was working,
would no longer be able to recover it or to distinguish between the
lawful and the unlawful morsels. The larva of the Scolia, consuming its
Cetonia-grub, has taught us all that we want to know on this subject in
my earlier volume. (Chapters 2 to 5 of the present volume contain the
whole of the matter referred to above.--Translator's Note.) The only
acceptable larvae are those supplied with a heap of small insects, which
are attacked without any special art, dismembered at random and eaten up
quickly. Among these I have tested such as chance threw in my way: those
of various Bembeces, all fed on Flies, those of the Palarus, whose bill
of fare consists of a very large assortment of Hymenoptera; those of the
Tarsal Tachytes, supplied with young Locusts; those of the Nest-building
Odynerus, furnished with Chrysomela-grubs; those of the Sand Cerceris,
endowed with a pinch of Weevils. A goodly variety, as you see, of
consumers and consumed. Well, to all of these the seasoning with honey
proved fatal. Whether poisoned or disgusted, they all died in a few
days.

A strange result indeed! Honey, the nectar of the flowers, the sole diet
of the Bee-tribe in both its forms and the sole resource of the Wasp
in her a adult form, is to the larvae of the latter an object
of insurmountable repugnance and probably a toxic dish. Even the
transformation of the nymphosis surprises me less than this inversion
of the appetite. What happens in the insect's stomach to make the adult
seek passionately what the youngster refused lest it should die? This is
not a question of organic debility unable to endure a too substantial,
too hard, too highly spiced dish. The grub that gnaws the Cetonia-larva,
that generous piece of butcher's meat; the glutton that crunches its
batch of tough Locusts; the one that battens on nitrobenzine-flavoured
game: they certainly own unfastidious gullets and accommodating
stomachs. And these robust eaters allow themselves to die of hunger
or digestive troubles because of a drop of syrup, the lightest food
imaginable, suited to the weakness of extreme youth and a feast for the
adult besides! What a gulf of obscurity in the stomach of a wretched
grub!

These gastronomical researches calle