More Hunting Wasps 



gle dish consisting of one big head of game 

 to replace the normal ration. Only one suc- 

 cess is recorded in my note-books, but that 

 was so difficult that I would not undertake to 

 obtain it a second time. I succeeded in feed- 

 ing the larva of the Hairy Ammophila with 

 an adult black Cricket, who was accepted as 

 readily as the natural game, the caterpillar. 

 To avoid putrefaction of victuals which 

 last overlong and are not consumed accord- 

 ing to the method indispensable to their 

 preservation, I employ small game, each piece 

 of which can be finished by the larva at a sin- 

 gle sitting, or at most in a single day. It 

 matters little then that the victim is slashed 

 and dismembered at random; decomposition 

 has no time to seize upon its still quivering 

 tissues. This is the procedure of those 

 larvae which gulp down their food, snapping 

 at random without distinguishing one part 

 from another, such as the Bembex-Iarvae, 

 which finish the Fly into which they 

 have bitten before beginning another in the 

 heap, or the Cerceris-larvae, which drain 

 their Weevils methodically one after another. 

 With the first strokes of the mandibles the 

 victim broached may be mortally wounded. 

 This is no disadvantage: a brief spell suffices 

 to make use of the corpse, which is saved 



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