230 INSECT LIFE 



XVI 



went on thus for a week, giving the grub each 

 morning a larger ration. On the ninth day it 

 refused to eat and began to spin its cocoon. The 

 bill of fare for the week's high feeding amounted to 

 sixty-two items, chiefly Eristalis and house-flies, 

 which, added to the twenty items found entire or in 

 fragments in the cell, formed a total of eighty-two. 



Possibly I may not have brought up my larva 

 with the wholesome frugality which the mother 

 would have shown ; there may have been some waste 

 in the daily rations, provided all at once and left 

 entirely to the discretion of the grub. I fancied that 

 in some particulars things did not go on exactly as 

 in the cell, for my notes have such details as : "In 

 the alluvial sands of the Durance I discovered a 

 burrow into which Bembex oculata had taken a Sar- 

 cophaga agricola. At the bottom of the gallery was 

 a larva, numerous fragments, and some Diptera entire 

 — namely, four Sphaerophoria scripta, one Onesia 

 viarum, and two Sarcophaga agricola, counting that 

 which the Bembex had brought under my very eyes." 

 Now it must be remarked that one half of this game, 

 the Sphaerophoria, was quite at the bottom of the 

 cell — under the very jaws of the larva, while the 

 other half was still in the gallery — on the threshold of 

 the cell — consequently out of the grub's reach, as it 

 could not leave its place. It would seem that when 

 game abounds, the mother disposes provisionally of 

 her captures on the threshold of the cell, and forms 

 a reserve on which she draws as need arises, especi- 

 ally on rainy days, when all labour is at a standstill. 

 This economy in distributing food would prevent the 

 waste unavoidable with my larva perhaps too sump- 



