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Updated: June 23, 2025
In all this I see a manifestation of delight. We rub our hands when rejoicing at a success; the Ammophila is celebrating her triumph over the monster in her own fashion. During this fit of delirious joy, what is the wounded caterpillar doing? It can no longer walk; but all the part behind the thorax struggles violently, curling and uncurling when the Ammophila sets a foot upon it.
Walsh, B.D., on the proportion of the sexes in Papilio Turnus; on the Cynipidae and Cecidomyidae; on the jaws of Ammophila; on Corydalis cornutus; on the prehensile organs of male insects; on the antennae of Penthe; on the caudal appendages of dragonflies; on Platyphyllum concavum; on the sexes of the Ephemeridae; on the difference of colour in the sexes of Spectrum femoratum; on sexes of dragon-flies; on the difference of the sexes in the Ichneumonidae; on the sexes of Orsodacna atra; on the variation of the horns of the male Phanaeas carnifex; on the coloration of the species of Anthocharis.
And how insurmountable would be the difficulties if the Scolia, working in the profound darkness amid the crumbling soil and confronted by a terrible pair of mandibles, had to stab each segment in turn with her sting, with the certainty of method displayed by the Ammophila!
This feeling of vulnerability might owe nothing to outward perception, but result from the mere presence together of the Ammophila and the caterpillar, considered no longer as two organisms, but as two activities. It would express, in a concrete form, the relation of the one to the other. Certainly, a scientific theory cannot appeal to considerations of this kind.
Well, how can this multitude of varied instincts teach us anything about gradual transformation? Will the one and only dagger-thrust of the Cerceris and the Scolia take us to the two thrusts of the Calicurgus, to the three thrusts of the Sphex, to the manifold thrust of the Ammophila? Yes, if we consider only numerical progression. One and one are two; two and one are three: so run the figures.
What better, for example, than the term Sphex? The ear is satisfied and the mind is not corrupted by a prejudice, a source of error to the beginner. I have not nearly as much liking for Ammophila, which represents as a lover of the sands an animal whose establishments call for compact soil.
The Ammophila does not as a rule trouble about her burrow, or at least does not complete it, until she has caught her caterpillar. During the mining-operations, the game is laid somewhere high up, out of reach of the Ants, on some tuft of grass, or the twigs of a shrub, whither the huntress, from time to time, stopping her well-sinking, hastens to see if her quarry is still there.
If he had known the tactics of the Hairy Ammophila, the Mantis-hunting Tachytes, the Bee-eating Philanthus, the Calicurgi and other marauders, his anxiety, I believe, would have ended in a frank admission that he was unable to squeeze instinct into the mould of his formula.
I in my turn explore the outer world; and for ten days the pursuit of a caterpillar torments me till I lose my power of sleep. Then, at last, victory! At the foot of a sunny wall, under the budding rosettes of the panicled centaury, I find a fair supply of the precious Grey Worm or its equivalent. Behold the worm and the Ammophila face to face beneath the bell-glass.
A Grey Worm which had just received its first sting on the third thoracic segment repulses the Ammophila and with a jerk hurls her to a distance. I profit by the occasion and take hold of the grub. The legs of this third segment only are paralysed; the others retain their usual mobility.
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