More Hunting Wasps 



(//. scapulare, LATR.),* who makes her 

 nests in dry bramble-stems. The scanty fare 

 makes a wretched dwarf of the offspring be- 

 longing to either sex, without depriving them 

 of any of their racial features. We still 

 see the Burnt Zonitis, with the distinctive 

 sign of the species: the singed patch at the 

 tip of the wing-cases. 



And the other Meloidae — Cantharides, 

 Cerocomae, Mylabres ^ — to what inequalities 

 of size are they not subject, irrespective of 

 sex! There are some — and they are nu- 

 merous — whose dimensions fall to a half, a 

 third, a quarter of the regular dimensions. 

 Among these dwarfs, these misbegotten 

 ones, these victims of atrophy, there are fe- 

 males as well as males; and their smallness 

 by no means cools their amorous ardour. 

 These needy creatures, I repeat, have a hard 

 life of it. Whence do they come, these di- 

 minutive Beetles, if not from dining-rooms 

 insufficiently supplied for their needs? 

 Their parasitical habits expose them to harsh 

 vicissitudes. No matter: in dearth as well 

 as in abundance the two sexes appear and 

 the specific features remain unchanged. 



lA Cotton-bee, cf. idem: chap. ix. — Translator's Note. 

 2 For these Blister-beetles or Oil-beetles, cf. The Gloixi- 

 ivorm and Other Beetles: chap. vi. — Translator's Note. 

 240 



