ii8 INSECT LIFE 



IX 



you describe the number and arrangement of the 

 wing nerves, and you speak of cubital and recur- 

 rent nerves ; next follows the written description of 

 the insect. Here it is black, there rusty red, smoky 

 brown at the wing tips, at such a spot it is black 

 velvet, at another silvery down, and at a third 

 smooth. It is all very precise, very minute — one 

 must grant that much justice to the clear-sighted 

 patience of him who describes ; but it is very long, 

 and besides, not always easy to follow, to such a 

 degree that one may be excused for being some- 

 times a little bewildered, even when not altogether 

 a novice. But add to the tedious description just 

 this — hunts ephippigers, and with these two words 

 light shines at once ; there can be no mistake about 

 my Sphex, none other selecting that prey. And to 

 illuminate the subject thus, what was needed ? Real 

 observation, and not to let entomology consist in 

 rows of impaled insects. But let us pass on and 

 consider such little as is known as to the manner in 

 which foreign Sphegidse hunt. I open Lepeletier 

 de St. Fargeau's History of Hymenoptera, and 

 find that on the other side of the Mediterranean, 

 in our Algerian provinces, S. flavipennis and S. 

 albisecta have the same tastes that characterise them 

 here. In the land of palms they catch Orthoptera 

 just as they do in the land of olives. Although 

 separated by the width of the sea, these sporting 

 fellow citizens of the Kabyle and the Berber hunt 

 the same game as their relatives in Provence. I 

 see mentioned a fourth species, S. afra, as hunting 

 crickets round Oran. Moreover, I have a recollec- 

 tion of having read — I know not where — of a fifth 



