CHAPTER III 



A DANGEROUS DIET 



THE Scolia's egg is in no way excep- 

 tional in shape. It is white, cylindri- 

 cal, straight and about four millimetres long 

 by one millimetre thick.^ It is fixed, by its 

 fore-end, upon the median line of the vic- 

 tim's abdomen, well to the rear of the legs, 

 near the beginning of the brown patch 

 formed by the mass of food under the skin. 

 I watch the hatching. The grub, still 

 wearing upon its hinder parts the delicate 

 pellicle which it has just shed, is fixed to the 

 spot to which the egg itself adhered by its 

 cephalic extremity. A striking spectacle, 

 that of the feeble creature, only this moment 

 hatched, boring, for its first mouthful, into 

 the paunch of its enormous prey, which lies 

 stretched upon its back. The nascent tooth 

 takes a day over the difficult task. Next 

 morning the skin has yielded; and I find the 

 new-born larva with its head plunged into a 

 small, round, bleeding wound. 



1 About .156 X .039 inch. — Translator's Note. 



55 



