96 The Hunting IVasps 



felt, exactly like that of the wallet which comes 

 before ; the inner layer, the third laj^er of the 

 cocoon, is a sort of shellac, a shiny wash of a 

 dark violet-brown, brittle, very soft to the 

 touch, and of a nature apparently quite different 

 from the rest of the cocoon. We see, in fact, 

 under the microscope that, instead of being a 

 felt of silky threads like the previous wrapper, 

 it is a homogeneous coating of a peculiar 

 varnish, whose origin is rather singular, as we 

 shall see. As for the resistance of the cone- 

 shaped end of the cocoon, we discover that this 

 is due to a plug of crumbly matter, violet-black 

 and sparkling with a number of black particles. 

 This plug is the dried mass of the excrement 

 which the larva ejects, once and for all, inside 

 the cocoon itself. The same stercoral kernel 

 also causes the darker shade of the cone-shaped 

 end of the cocoon. The complicated dwelling 

 averages twenty-seven millimetres in length, 

 while its greatest width is nine millimetres. ^ 



Let us return to the violet varnish that lines 

 the inside of the cocoon. I thought at first 

 that I must attribute it to the silk-glands, 

 which, after giving a glossy coat to the double 

 wrapper of silk and the scaffolding, have still 

 a secret store of the fluid. To convince myself, 

 I opened some larvae which had just finished 



* I '05 X -35 inch. — Trattslator's Note. 



