150 THE LIFE AND LOVE OF THE INSECT 



period, when I had not yet seen for myself and was 

 obhged to take probabiUty for my guide, I was wilHng to 

 grant it the trick of the hedgehog, who rolls himself into 

 a ball and defies the dog. I thought that, doubled up, 

 with a force which mj^ fingers had some difiiculty in over- 

 coming, it would in like manner defy the Scolia, who was 

 powerless to unroU it and disdainful of any point but 

 that of her choice. I wished the grub to possess and I 

 believed that it did possess this very simple and efficacious 

 means of defence. But I had too great confidence in its 

 ingenuity. Instead of copying the hedgehog and remain- 

 ing contracted, it flees with its belly in the air ; foolishlj^ 

 it adopts the very posture which allows the Scolia to 

 make the assault and to reach the point at which the 

 fatal blow is struck. 



Let us pass on to others. I have just captured an 

 Interrupted Scolia (Colpa Interrupta, Latr.), explormg the 

 sands, no doubt in quest of game. It is important to make 

 use of her as soon as may be, before her ardour has 

 been cooled by the tedium of captivity. I know her prey, 

 the grub of Anoxia Australis ; I know, from my old 

 habits of diggmg, the spots beloved by the worm : the 

 sand-dunes heaped by the wind at the foot of the rose- 

 mary-shrubs on the slopes of the neighbouring hills. It 

 will be hard work findmg it, for nothing is rarer than a 

 common thmg, when it is needed m a hurry. I call in 

 the aid of my father, an old man of ninety, but still 

 straight as a wand. Shouldering a shovel and a three- 

 pronged luchet, we set out under a sun in which you could 

 cook an egg. Exerting our feeble powers in turns, we 

 cut a trench in the sand where I hope to find the Anoxia. 

 My hopes are not disappointed. In the sweat of my brow 

 — never was truer word spoken — after shifting and sifting 



