The Cetoniae 



one's readers — he is known to everybody, 

 if not by his classic name,^ at least as an 

 object that often meets the eye. 



Who has not seen him, like a great em- 

 erald lying at the heart of a rose, whose 

 tender blush he enhances by the richness of 

 his jewellery? In this voluptuous bed of 

 stamens and petals he is encrusted, motion- 

 less; he remains there night and day, intoxi- 

 cated by the heady fragrance, drunk with 

 nectar. It needs the stimulus of fierce sun- 

 light to arouse him from his bliss and set 

 him soaring with a buzzing flight. 



To watch the Idle Beetle in his sybaritic 

 bed, without further information, one would 

 hardly suspect him of gluttony. What 

 nourishment can he find on a rose or a clus- 

 ter of hawthorn-blossom? At most a tiny 

 drop of sugary exudation, for he does not 

 browse upon the petals, still less upon the 

 foliage. And can this, a mere nothing, sat- 

 isfy that big body? I hesitate to believe it. 



In the first week of August I placed in a 

 cage fifteen Cetoniae that had just burst 

 their shells in my rearing-jars. Bronze 



1 The Cetonia is also known as the Rose-chafer {C. 

 aurata). Cf. More Hunting Wasps, by J. Henri Fabre, 

 translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: Trans- 

 lator's Note. 



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