The Hunting Wasps 



reason must overrule all such gastronomic 

 considerations and cause these curious predi- 

 lections. 



After all the admirable things that have 

 been said by Leon Dufour upon the long and 

 wonderful preservation of the insects destined 

 for the flesh-eating larvae, it is almost need- 

 less to add that the Weevils, both those whom 

 I dug up and those whom I took from be- 

 tween the legs of their kidnappers, were al- 

 ways in a perfect state of preservation, 

 though deprived for ever of the power of 

 motion. Freshness of colour, flexibility of 

 the membranes and the lesser joints, normal 

 condition of the viscera : all these combine to 

 make you doubt that the lifeless body before 

 your eyes is really a corpse, all the more as 

 even with the magnifying-glass it is impossi- 

 ble to perceive the smallest wound; and, in 

 spite of yourself, you are every moment ex- 

 pecting to see the insect move and walk. 

 Nay more : in a heat which, in a few hours, 

 would have dried and pulverized insects that 

 had died an ordinary death, or in damp 

 weather, which would just as quickly have 

 made them decay and go mouldy, I have kept 

 the same specimens, both in glass tubes and 

 paper bags, for more than a month, without 

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