The Bee-eating Philanthus 



these the seasoning with honey proved fatal. 

 Whether poisoned or disgusted, they all died 

 in a few days. 



A strange result indeed ! Honey, the nec- 

 tar of the flowers, the sole diet of the Bee- 

 tribe in both its forms and the sole resource 

 of the Wasp in her adult form, is to the 

 larva3 of the latter an object of insurmount- 

 able repugnance and probably a toxic dish. 

 Even the transformation of the nymphosis 

 surprises me less than this inversion of the 

 appetite. What happens in the insect's 

 stomach to make the adult seek passionately 

 what the youngster refused lest it should 

 die? This is not a question of organic de- 

 bility unable to endure a too substantial, too 

 hard, too highly spiced dish. The grub that 

 gnaws the Cetonia-larva, that generous piece 

 of butcher's meat; the glutton that crunches 

 its batch of tough Locusts; the one that bat- 

 tens on nitrobenzine-flavoured game: they 

 certainly own unfastidious gullets and ac- 

 commodating stomachs. And these robust 

 eaters allow themselves to die of hunger or 

 digestive troubles because of a drop of syrup, 

 the lightest food imaginable, suited to the 

 weakness of extreme youth and a feast for 

 the adult besides ! What a gulf of obscurity 

 in the stomach of a wretched grub I 

 275 



