The Scoliae 



Favier calls me while in the midst of his 

 labours with the spade and barrow : 



" Here's a find, sir, a great find ! Come 

 and look." 



I hasten to the spot. The find is a mag- 

 nificent one indeed and of a nature to fill me 

 with delight, awakening all my old recollec- 

 tions of the Bois des Issards. Any number 

 of females of the Two-banded Scolia, dis- 

 turbed at their work, are emerging here and 

 there from the depth of the soil. The co- 

 coons also are plentiful, each lying next to 

 the skin of the victim on which the larva has 

 fed. They are all open but still fresh : they 

 date from the present generation ; the Scolias 

 whom I unearth have quitted them not long 

 since. I learnt later, in fact, that the hatch- 

 ing took place in the course of July. 



In the same heap of mould is a swarming 

 colony of Scarabaeidae in the form of larvae, 

 nymphs and adult insects. It includes the 

 largest of our Beetles, the common Rhino- 

 ceros Beetle, or Oryctes nasicornis. I find 

 some who have been recently liberated, 

 whose wing-cases, of a glossy brown, now 

 see the sunlight for the first time; I find 

 others enclosed in their earthen shell, al- 

 most as big as a Turkey's egg. More fre- 

 47 



