48 INSECT LIFE 



III 



worse. Beyond salting and drying we have nothing 

 which even for a short period can keep meat eatable. 

 At the present time, after innumerable fruitless 

 attempts of the most varied kind, special ships are 

 equipped at great cost, which, furnished with power- 

 ful freezing apparatus, convey to us the flesh of 

 sheep and oxen slaughtered in the Pampas of South 

 America, frozen and kept from corruption by intense 

 cold. How far superior is the method of the Cerceris, 

 so rapid, so cheap, so expeditious ! What lessons 

 we should have to learn from such transcendental 

 chemistry when an imperceptible drop of liquid 

 poison renders in an instant the prey incorruptible ! 

 What am I saying ? — incorruptible ? — that is far from 

 being all ; the game is put into a condition which 

 prevents desiccation, leaves their suppleness to the 

 limbs, and maintains all the organs in pristine fresh- 

 ness, both the internal and external. In short, the 

 Cerceris puts the insect into a state differing only 

 from life by a corpse-like immobility. 



Such is the conclusion arrived at by L^on Dufour 

 before this incomprehensible marvel of the dead 

 Buprestis untouched by corruption. An antiseptic 

 fluid, incomparably superior to anything that human 

 science could produce, would explain the mystery. 

 He, the Master, skilful of the skilful, thoroughly 

 used to most delicate anatomy ; he who with magni- 

 fying glass and scalpel has scrutinised the whole 

 circuit of entomology, leaving no corner unexplored ; 

 he, in short, for whom the organisation of insects has 

 no secrets, — can advance no better conjecture than an 

 antiseptic liquid to give at least a kind of explanation 

 of a fact which leaves him confounded. Let me 



