ken, that the magnificent Copres of
Ethiopia and the big Sacred Beetles of Senegambia work exactly like
our own.

The same similarity of industry exists in other entomological series,
however distant their country. My books give details of a
Pelopaeus[19] in Sumatra, who is an ardent Spider-huntress like our
own, who builds mud cells inside houses and who, like her, is fond of
the loose hangings of the window-curtains for the shifting foundation
of her nests. They tell me of a Scolia[20] in Madagascar who serves
each of her grubs with a fat rasher, an Oryctes-larva,[21] even as our
own Scoliae feed their family on prey of similar organization, with a
highly concentrated nervous system, such as the larvae of Cetoniae,
Anoxiae and even Oryctes. They tell me that in Texas a Pepsis, a
huntress of big game akin to the Calicurgi, gives chase to a
formidable Tarantula and vies in daring with our Ringed
Calicurgus,[22] who stabs the Black-bellied Lycosa.[23] They tell me
that the Sphex-wasps of the Sahara, a rival of our own White-banded
Sphex,[24] operate on Locusts. But we must limit these quotations,
which could easily be multiplied.

[Footnote 19: Cf. _The Mason-wasps_, by J. Henri Fabre, translated by
Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chaps. iii. to vi.--_Translator's
Note_.]

[Footnote 20: The chapters on the Scoliae will appear in _More Hunting
Wasps_. Meanwhile, cf. _The Life and Love of the Insect_, by J. Henri
Fabre, translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chap.
xi.--_Translator's Note_.]

[Footnote 21: The larva of the Rhinoceros Beetle.--_Translator's
Note_.]

[Footnote 22: For the Pompilus, or Ringed Calicurgus, cf. _The Life
and Love of the Insect_: chap. xii.--_Translator's Note_.]

[Footnote 23: For the Narbonne Lycosa, or Black-bellied Tarantula, cf.
_The Life of the Spider_: chaps. i. and iii. to vii.--_Translator's
Note_.]

[Footnote 24: Cf. _The Life of the Fly_: chap. i.--_Translator's
Note_.]

For producing variations of animal species to suit our theorists there
is nothing so convenient as the influence of environment. It is a
vague, elastic phrase, which does not compromise us by compelling us
to be too precise and it supplies an apparent explanation of the
inexplicable. But is this influence so powerful as they say?

I grant you that to some small extent it modifies the shape, the fur
or feather, the colouring, the outward accessories. To go farther
would be to fly in the face of facts. I