The Life of Jean Henri Fabre 



as fresh as at the moment of capture during 

 the greatest heat of summer, he presumed 

 the use of a liquid antiseptic, acting in the 

 same manner as the preparations used to pre- 

 serve anatomical specimens. This liquid 

 could only be the venom of the Hymenop- 

 teron inoculated into the victim's body. The 

 tiny drop of poisonous humour that accom- 

 panies the sting, the lancet employed in the 

 inoculation, is supposed to perform the office 

 of a kind of pickle or preservative liquid for 

 preserving the flesh set aside for the nour- 

 ishment of the larvae. 



But Fabre was burning with curiosity to 

 observe for himself a phenomenon which an 

 old practitioner like Dufour proclaims the 

 most curious and extraordinary known to the 

 history of the insect kingdom. 1 He did not 

 hesitate to go to Carpentras, to search for 

 the Buprestis-hunting wasp, which does not 

 occur in the neighbourhood of Avignon. A 

 minute inspection of the Cerceris' victims en- 

 abled him to prove that, not only was the 

 flesh intact, but the joints were flexible, the 

 viscera were moist, defalcation persisted, and 

 vestiges of irritability even were present, all 

 of which facts were scarcely compatible 



1 Souvenirs, I., pp. 41, 44. The Hunting Wasps, chap. 

 I., " The Buprestis-hunting Cerceris." 

 156 



