The BupresHs-hunting Cerceris 1 1 



large enough to contain three Buprestes, which 

 form the usual allowance for each larva. The 

 mother lays an ^^^^ in the middle of the three 

 victims and then stops up the gallery with 

 earth, so that, when the victualling of the whole 

 brood is finished, the cells no longer communi- 

 cate with the outside. 



' Cerceris hupresticida must be a dexterous, 

 daring, and skilful huntress. The cleanliness 

 and freshness of the Buprestes whom she buries 

 in her lair incline one to believe that she must 

 seize these Beetles at the moment when they 

 are leaving the wooden galleries in which their 

 final metamorphosis has taken place. But 

 what inconceivable instinct urges her, a crea- 

 ture that lives solely on the nectar of flowers, 

 to procure, in the face of a thousand difficulties, 

 animal food for carnivorous children which she 

 will never see, and to take up her post on utterly 

 dissimilar trees, which conceal deep down in 

 their trunks the insects destined to become her 

 prey ? What yet more inconceivable entomo- 

 logical judgment lays down the strict law that 

 she shall confine herself in the choice of her 

 victims to a single generic group and capture 

 specimens differing greatly among themselves 

 in size, shape, and colour ? For observe, my 

 friend, how slight the resemblance is between 

 Buprestis biguUata, with a long, slender body 



