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Without succeeding in my final aim, for reasons which I have just explained, I have seen the Two-banded Scolia feasting greedily on the grub of the Oryctes, which was substituted for that of the Cetonia, and putting up with an Ephippiger taken from the burrow of the Sphex; I have been present at the repast of three Hairy Ammophilae accepting with an excellent appetite the Cricket that replaced their caterpillar.
Like the egg of Columbus, it was a very little thing, but it had to be thought of. While hoping that the future will sink the unfortunate "fuller" in oblivion, we will use the term "pine chafer" between ourselves. Under that name no one can possibly mistake the insect in question, which frequents the pine-tree only. It has a handsome and dignified appearance, rivalling that of Oryctes nasicornis.
Perhaps she even assails other larvae, inhabitants, like the foregoing, of heaps of rotting vegetable-matter. I therefore set down the Cetonia genus generally as forming the prey of the Two-banded Scolia. Oryctes, Cetoniae and Anoxiae in the larval state: here then is the prey of the three Scoliae whose habits we know. The three Beetles are Lamellicorns, Scarabaeidae.
In the case of the Heliopathes and Oryctes there can hardly be a doubt that the males stridulate in order to call or to excite the females; but with most beetles the stridulation apparently serves both sexes as a mutual call. Beetles stridulate under various emotions, in the same manner as birds use their voices for many purposes besides singing to their mates.
So far so good. But now tell me, if you please, why the larvae of the Oryctes and the Scarabaeus, living in vegetable mould, the larva of the Anoxia, dwelling in the sand, and the larva of the Cockchafer in our cultivated fields have not also acquired the faculty of walking on their backs?
And as much may be said of the larva of Scarabaeus pentodon, a fellow-boarder of the Oryctes and the Cetonia. Now that all the facts have been set forth, it is time to collate them. "The Hunting Wasps": chapters 1 to 3. Those predatory insects, working in the open air, are exempt from the difficulties which their emulators, working underground, have to overcome.
If this had happened in a higher order of the animal world, it would make one's flesh creep to watch the Carabus half immersed in the big Cockchafer and rooting out his entrails. I test the eviscerator with a more difficult quarry. This time the victim is Oryctes nasicornis, the powerful Rhinoceros Beetle, an invincible giant, one would think, under the shelter of his armour.
Not a bit of it! On the third day, the Oryctes decomposes and the Scolia dies. Which shall we hold responsible for the failure, myself or the grub? Myself who, perhaps too unskilfully, administered the injection of ammonia, or the grub which, a novice at dissecting a prey differing from its own, did not know how to practise its craft upon a changed victim and began to bite before the proper time?
Orsodacna ruficollis. Orthoptera, metamorphosis of; stridulating apparatus of; colours of; rudimentary stridulating organs in female; stridulation of the, and Homoptera, discussed. Ortygornis gularis, pugnacity of the male. Oryctes, stridulation of; sexual differences in the stridulant organs of. Oryx leucoryx, use of the horns of. Osphranter rufus, sexual difference in the colour of.
They tell me of a Scolia in Madagascar who serves each of her grubs with a fat rasher, an Oryctes-larva, even as our own Scoliæ feed their family on prey of similar organization, with a highly concentrated nervous system, such as the larvæ of Cetoniæ, Anoxiæ and even Oryctes.
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