The Professor: Avignon 



etly strolling along a narrow footpath on the 

 banks of the Rhone: 



A Yellow-winged Sphex appears, hopping along, 

 dragging her prey. What do I see? The prey 

 is not a Cricket, but a common Acridian, a Lo- 

 cust! And yet the Wasp is really the Sphex with 

 whom I am so familiar, the Yellow-winged Sphex, 

 the keen Cricket-huntress. I can hardly believe 

 the evidence of my own eyes. 



The burrow is not far off: the insect enters it 

 and stores away the booty. I sit down, determined 

 to wait for a new expedition, to wait hours if 

 necessary, so that I may see if the extraordinary 

 capture is repeated. My sitting attitude makes 

 me take up the whole width of the path. Two 

 raw conscripts heave in sight, their hair newly 

 cut, wearing that inimitable automaton look which 

 the first days of barrack-life bestow. They are 

 chatting together, talking no doubt of home and 

 the girl they left behind them; and each is inno- 

 cently whittling a willow-switch with his knife. I 

 am seized with a sudden apprehension. I there- 

 fore got up without speaking and trusted to my 

 lucky star. Alas and alack, my star betrayed me: 

 the heavy regulation boot came straight down 

 upon the ceiHng of the Sphex! A shudder ran 

 through me as though I myself had received the im- 

 p'ress of the hobnailed sole.^ 



1 Souvenirs, i., p. 122. The Hunting Wasps, chap, vii., 

 " Advanced Theories." 



