Advanced Theories 



in all instead of the usual Crickets. What 

 was the reason of this curious change ? Were 

 there no Crickets in the neighbourhood of the 

 burrow and was the distressed Wasp making 

 up for them with Locusts : a case of Hobson's 

 choice, in fact? I hesitate to believe it, for 

 there was nothing about the neighbourhood 

 to warrant the supposition that the favourite 

 game was absent. Another, luckier than I, 

 will unriddle this new and unknown mystery. 

 The fact remains that the Yellow-winged 

 Sphex, either from imperious necessity or for 

 some reason that escapes me, sometimes re- 

 places her chosen prey, the Cricket, with 

 another prey, the Locust, presenting no ex- 

 ternal resemblance to the first, but itself also 

 an Orthopteron. 



The observer on whose authority Lepele- 

 tier de Saint-Fargeau says a word or two 

 touching the habits of this same Sphex wit- 

 nessed a similar storing away of Locusts in 

 Africa, near Oran. He surprised a Yellow- 

 winged Sphex dragging an Acridian along. 

 Was it an accidental case, like that which I 

 witnessed on the banks of the Rhone? Was 

 it an exception or the rule? Can there be a 

 lack of Crickets in the country around Oran 

 and does the Wasp fill their place with 

 125 



