140 INSECT LIFE x 



build solitary cottages, while where there are good 

 roads, they collect in populous cities, served by rail- 

 roads, which, so to say, annihilate distance ; they 

 assemble in immense human hives called London or 

 Paris. 



The Languedocian Sphex has quite another 

 lot. Its prey is a heavy ephippiger — a single 

 morsel representing the whole sum of provender 

 amassed by the other predatory insects bit by 

 bit. What the Cerceris and other strong-flying 

 insects do by dividing their labour is accomplished 

 by a single effort. The weight of the prey rendering 

 flight impossible, it must be brought home with all 

 the delays and fatigue of dragging it along the 

 ground. This one fact obliges her to accommodate 

 the position of her burrow to the chances of the 

 chase : first the prey and then the dwelling. Hence 

 no rendezvous at a general meeting-place ; no living 

 among neighbours, no tribes stimulating themselves 

 by mutual example — only isolation where chance has 

 led the Sphex — solitary labour, unenthusiastic, though 

 always conscientious. First of all prey is sought, 

 attacked, and paralysed. Then comes making the 

 burrow. A favourable spot is chosen as near as 

 possible to that where lies the victim, so as to 

 abridge the toil of transport, and the cell of the 

 future larva is rapidly hollowed to receive an egg 

 and food as soon as possible. Such is the very 

 different method shown by all my observations. I 

 will mention the chief of them. 



If surprised in its mining, one always finds this 

 Sphex alone — sometimes at the bottom of some 

 dusty niche a fallen stone has left in an old wall — 



