ctar-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 popul