A Dangerous Diet 



visions retain their freshness. They lan- 

 guish when the game goes high; and they 

 die when putridity supervenes. Their death, 

 therefore, is due not to an unaccustomed 

 diet, but to poisoning by one or other of 

 those terrible toxins which are engendered 

 by animal corruption and which chemistry 

 calls by the name of ptomaines. Therefore, 

 notwithstanding the fatal outcome of my 

 three attempts, I remain persuaded that the 

 unfamiliar method of rearing would have 

 been perfectly successful had the Ephippigers 

 not gone bad, that is, if the Scolias had known 

 how to eat them according to the rules. 



What a dehcate and dangerous thing is the 

 art of eating in these carnivorous larvae sup- 

 plied with a single victim, which they have 

 to spend a fortnight in consuming, on the 

 express condition of not killing it until the 

 very end! Could our physiological science, 

 of which, with good reason, we are so proud, 

 describe, without blundering, the method to 

 be followed in the successive mouthfuls? 

 How has a miserable grub learnt what our 

 knowledge cannot tell us? By habit, the 

 Darwinians will reply, who see in instinct an 

 acquired habit. 



Before deciding this serious matter, I will 

 ask you to reflect that the first Wasp, of 

 77 



