no The Hunting JVasps 



of the narrator ; but it is very long and also 

 it is by no means always clear, so much so that 

 we may be excused if we are not quite able to 

 follow it, even when we are not altogether new 

 to the business. But add to the tedious de- 

 scription merely this : ' Hunts Ephippigers ' ; 

 and these two words at once shed light : there 

 is no possibility of my now mistaking my Sphex, 

 for she alone possesses the monopoly of that 

 particular prey. To give this illuminating note, 

 what would be needed ? The habit of really 

 observing and of not making entomology con- 

 sist of so many series of impaled insects. 



But let us pass on and examine the little 

 that is known about the hunting methods 

 of the foreign Sphex-wasps. I open Lepele- 

 tier de Saint-Fargeau's ^ Natural History of 

 Hymenoptera and find that, on the other side 

 of the Mediterranean, in our Algerian provinces, 

 the Yellow-winged Sphex and the White-edged 

 Sphex retain the same habits that characterize 

 them here. They capture Orthoptera in the 

 land of palm-trees even as they do in the land 

 of olive-trees. Though separated from the 

 others by the vast width of the sea, the hunting 



^ Amedee Comte Lepeletier de Saint-Fargeau {I'jd^-circa 1850), 

 author of an Histoire naturelle des insectes (1836- 1846) and of the 

 volume on insects in the Encyclopcdie mcthodique. He was a 

 younger brother of Louis Michel and Felix Lepeletier de Saint- 

 Fargeau, the members of the Convention. — Translator's Note. 



