122 INSECT LIFE 



IX 



knife. A fear seizes me ; ah ! it is not easy to try 

 an experiment on the public way, where, when some 

 fact watched for during long years does present 

 itself, a passer - by may disturb or annihilate 

 chances which may never occur again ! I rise 

 anxiously to make way for the conscripts ; I with- 

 draw into the osier bed, and leave the narrow way 

 free. To do more was not prudent ; to say, " My 

 good fellows, do not go that way," would have made 

 bad worse. They would have supposed some snare 

 hidden in the sand, and questions would have arisen 

 to which no reply that would satisfy them could have 

 been given. My request, moreover, would have 

 turned these idlers into lookers-on, very embarrass- 

 ing company in such studies, so I resolved to say 

 nothing, and trust to my luck. Alas ! alas ! my 

 star betrayed me. The heavy regulation boot was 

 planted exactly on the Sphex's roof. A shudder 

 ran through me as though I had myself received the 

 impress of the iron heel. 



The conscripts gone I proceeded to the salvage 

 of the contents of the ruined burrow. There was 

 the Sphex mutilated by the pressure, and there 

 were not only the cricket which I saw carried down, 

 but two others — three crickets in all instead of the 

 usual grasshoppers. What was the reason of this 

 strange variation ? Were there no grasshoppers near 

 the burrow, and did the distressed Hymenopteron do 

 the best she could with Acridians — contenting her- 

 self as it were with blackbirds for want of thrushes, as 

 the proverb says ? I hesitate to believe it, for there 

 was nothing in the neighbourhood to denote absence 

 of her favourite game. Some happier means may 



