The Hunting Wasps 



that she must seize these Beetles at the mo- 

 ment when they are leaving the wooden gal- 

 leries in which their final metamorphosis has 

 taken place. But what inconceivable instinct 

 urges her, a creature that lives solely on the 

 nectar of flowers, to procure, in the face of 

 a thousand difficulties, animal food for carni- 

 vorous children which she will never see and 

 to take up her post on utterly dissimilar trees, 

 which conceal deep down in their trunks the 

 insects destined to become her prey? What 

 yet more inconceivable entomological judg- 

 ment lays down the strict law that she shall 

 confine herself in the choice of her victims 

 to a single generic group and capture speci- 

 mens differing greatly among themselves in 

 size, shape and colour? For observe, my 

 friend, how slight the resemblance is between 

 Buprestis biguttata, with a long, slender body 

 and a dark colour; B. octoguttata, oval- 

 oblong, with great patches of a beautiful yel- 

 low on a blue or green ground; and B. micans, 

 who is three or four times the size of B. bi- 

 guttata and glitters with a metallic lustre of 

 a fine golden green. 



" There is another very singular fact about 

 the manoeuvres of our Buprestis-slayer. The 

 buried Buprestes, like those whom I have 



12 



