228 INSECT LIFE 



XVI 



Each time that she penetrates into the burrow on 

 returning from the chase, the mother brings but a 

 single fly. Were it possible by means of the remains 

 contained in a cell where the larva is full grown to 

 count the victims served up, one would at least know 

 how often the Hymenopteron visited its burrow after 

 the egg is laid. Unfortunately, these broken meats — 

 munched and munched again in moments of scarcity 

 — are for the most part unrecognisable. But on 

 opening a cell with a less advanced nursling, one can 

 examine the provisions, some of the prey being yet 

 whole or nearly so, and others, more numerous, being 

 trunks in sufficiently good preservation to be distin- 

 guishable. Incomplete as it is, the enumeration thus 

 obtained strikes one with surprise, as showing what 

 activity the Hymenopteron must display to satisfy the 

 demands of such a table. Here is one of the bills 

 of fare observed. 



At the end of July around the larva of Bembex 

 Julia, which had almost reached the third of its full 

 size, I found the prey of which the following is the 

 list : — Six Echinomyia rubescens — two whole and 

 four in pieces ; four Syrphus corollas — two whole, two 

 in fragments ; three Goiiia atra — all intact, and one 

 just brought by the mother, which had enabled me 

 to discover the burrow ; two Pollenia ruficollis — one 

 whole, one attacked ; a Bombylius reduced to pulp ; 

 two Echinomyia intermedia in bits ; and finally two 

 Pollenia floralis, also in bits — total, twenty. Cer- 

 tainly we have here a bill of fare as abundant as 

 varied, but as the larva had only attained to a third 

 of its complete size, the entire bill of fare might well 

 amount to sixty articles. 



