124 THE INDUSTRIES OF ANIMALS. 



and co-ordinating their efforts they transport it 

 several metres off to a spot which they know by 

 experience to be suitable for their labours. It may 

 happen that soft earth is too far away, and transport 

 becoming too difficult a task, they renounce it. But 

 as good food should never be wasted, they utilise it 

 by feeding themselves, awaiting a more manageable 

 god-send for their offspring. 



Many observers have studied these beetles, and 

 all are surprised at their sagacity, and the way in 

 which their various operations are adapted to cir- 

 cumstances; genuine reflection governs their acts, 

 which are always combined to produce a definite 

 effect. 



Provision of paralysed living animals. — It is un- 

 necessary to say how much better it would be for 

 the young larva to have at its disposal instead of a 

 carcass a living animal, but paralysed and rendered 

 motionless by some method. It is difficult to believe 

 the thing possible, yet nothing is better established. 

 There is a hymenopterous relative of the Wasp called 

 the Sphex. Instead of laying up honey they store 

 animal provisions for their larv.ne. Fabre has studied 

 one of them, the Sphex flavipennis} It is in Septem- 

 ber that this wasp lays her eggs ; during this month 

 to shelter her little ones she hollows out a dozen 

 burrows and provisions them. She has then to 

 devote about three days' work to each of them, for 

 there is much to do, as may be imagined. For 

 each of these hiding-places the Sphex first pierces 

 a horizontal gallery about two or three inches long; 

 then she bends it obliquely so that it penetrates 



' "Etude sur I'inslinct et les metamorphoses des Sphegiens," Ann. 

 Set. Nat., 1856. 



