IV CERCERIS TUBERCULATA 63 



in the same spots, and in a fraction of time, one 

 Hymenopteron would have found hundreds of these 

 insects which man cannot find, and found them 

 fresh and shining, no doubt just emerged from the 

 cocoon ! 



No matter ; let us experiment with my wretched 

 victim. A Cerceris has just gone into her gallery with 

 her prey ; before she comes out for a new expedition 

 I place a weevil a few inches from her hole. The 

 weevil moves about ; when it strays too far I bring 

 it back to its place. At last the Cerceris shows 

 her wide face at the mouth of her hole ; my heart 

 beats fast. She walks for a few minutes near her 

 dwelling, sees the weevil, brushes against it, turns, 

 passes several times over its back, and flies off 

 without even honouring my captive with a bite — 

 my captive which cost me so much labour ! I 

 was confounded — knocked over. New attempts at 

 other holes, new disappointments. Decidedly these 

 dainty hunters will have none of the game which I 

 offer them. Perhaps they find it too old, too taste- 

 less ; perhaps, in handling it, I communicated some 

 smell to it which displeases them. Foreign contact 

 disgusts these connoisseurs. 



Should I be more fortunate if I obliged the 

 Cerceris to defend herself? I enclosed one with a 

 Cleonus in a bottle, irritating them by shaking it. 

 The Hymenopteron, sensitive by nature, was more 

 impressed than the other prisoner, with its dull, 

 heavy organisation ; she thought of escape, not 

 attack. Their parts were exchanged ; the weevil 

 became the aggressor, sometimes seizing with the 

 ^nd of its trunk a foot of its mortal foe, who made 



