The Odyneri 



Aristotle and Pliny, as you said when your 

 note sounded for the first time. But our 

 own idioms, our primitive idioms, what has 

 become of them? The scholar cannot even 

 recover their traces. Man alters; animals 

 do not change. 



At last, here we are at last! See, the 

 Odynerus arrives, with a flight as silent as 

 the Eumenes'. She disappears into the 

 curved cylinder of the vestibule, bringing 

 home a grub beneath her abdomen. I 

 place a small glass test-tube at the entrance 

 to the nest. When the insect emerges, it 

 will be caught. Done! The Wasp is 

 caught and at once decanted into the 

 asphyxiating-flask, with its strips of paper 

 steeped in bisulphide of carbon. And now, 

 my Dog, still lolling your tongue and frisk- 

 ing your tail, we can be off; the day has 

 not been wasted. We will come back to- 

 morrow. 



Upon investigation, my Odynerus does 

 not correspond with what I expected to see. 

 This is not the species of which Reaumur 

 speaks (O. spinipes); nor is it the species 

 studied by Dufour (O. Reaumurit) ; it is 

 another. (O. reniformis, Latr.), a differ- 

 ent one, though addicted to the same arts. 

 Already the naturalist of the Landes had 

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