The Scoliae 



occupied in egg-laying and provisioning. 

 Everything seems to tell me that I should 

 watch in vain for the appearance of a few 

 females in the broad daylight; I must resign 

 myself to excavating at random. 



The result was hardly commensurate with 

 the labour which I expended on digging. I 

 found a few cocoons, nearly all broken, like 

 the one which I already possessed, and, like 

 it, bearing on their side the tattered skin of 

 a larva of the same Scarabaeid. Two of 

 these cocoons which are still intact contained 

 a dead adult Wasp. This was actually the 

 Two-banded Scolia, a precious discovery 

 which changed my suspicions into a certainty. 



I also unearthed some cocoons, slightly 

 different in appearance, containing an adult 

 inmate, likewise dead, in whom I recognized 

 the Interrupted Scolia. The remnants of 

 the provisions again consisted of the empty 

 skin of a larva, also a Lamellicorn, but not 

 the same as the one hunted by the first 

 Scolia. And this was all. Now here, now 

 there, I shifted a few cubic yards of soil, 

 without managing to find fresh provisions 

 with the egg or the young larva. And yet 

 it was the right season, the egg-laying season, 

 for the males, numerous at the outset, had 

 grown rarer day by day until they disap- 



43 



