Preface xv 



our descriptions. We may at most, in enumer- 

 ating the more important and familiar, bestow 

 on each of them a hurried epithet, in the manner 

 of old Homer. Shall I mention, for instance, 

 the Leucospis, a parasite of the Mason-bee, who, 

 to slay his brothers and sisters in their cradle, 

 arms himself with a horn helmet and a barbed 

 breastplate, which he doffs immediately after the 

 extermination, the safeguard of a hideous right 

 of primogeniture ? Shall I tell of the marvel- 

 lous anatomical knowledge of the Tachytes, 

 of the Cerceris, of the Ammophila, of the Langue- 

 docian Sphex, who, according as they wish to 

 paralyze or to kill their prey or their adversary, 

 know exactly, without ever blundering, which 

 nerve-centre to strike with their sting or their 

 mandibles ? Shall I speak of the art of the 

 Eumenes, who transforms her stronghold into 

 a complete museum adorned with shells and 

 grains of translucent quartz ; of the magnificent 

 metamorphosis of the Pachytilus cinarescens ; 

 of the musical instrument owned by the Cricket, 

 whose bow numbers one hundred and fifty 

 triangular prisms that set in motion simul- 

 taneously the four dulcimers of the elytron ? 



