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Updated: June 19, 2025
Before the burrows of Cerceris tuberculus and other devourers of the weevil, and before that of the yellow-winged Sphex, the slayer of crickets, there is plenty of distraction, owing to the busy movements of the community. The mothers have scarcely entered the nest before they are off again, returning quickly with fresh prey, only to set out once more.
If the object of the Philanthus were merely to cause paralysis she would plunge her sting into the defective corselet, as does the Cerceris in attacking the weevil, whose armour is quite unlike the bee's. Her aim is to kill outright, as we shall presently see; she wants a corpse, not a paralytic. We must admit that her technique is admirable; our human murderers could do no better.
This memoir marked the second stage of his scientific career, and followed, at an interval of two years, the magnificent observations on the Cerceris. These two studies, true masterpieces of science, already constituted two excellent titles to fame, and would by themselves have sufficed to fill a naturalist's whole lifetime and to make his name illustrious. >From that time forward he had no peer.
Among such larvæ I have experimented with those provided by chance those of various Bembeces, fed on Diptera; those of the Palaris, whose diet consists of a large variety of Hymenoptera; those of the Tachytus, provided with young crickets; those of the Odynerus, fed upon larvæ of the Chrysomela; those of the sand-dwelling Cerceris, endowed with a hecatomb of weevils.
These researches show us that in the Cerceris instinct is still subject to defect. In some neighbouring genera we can seize it, as it were, in process of formation. The way in which the Bembex, or Sand Wasp, provisions burrows by maternal foresight is much less mechanical than that of the Sphex. It is again Fabre who has described with most care the customs of this hymenopterous insect.
The majority of the insects which Fabre has studied are solitary, and are only to be encountered singly, scattered over wide areas of country. Some live only in determined spots, and not elsewhere, such as the famous Cerceris, or the yellow-winged Sphex, of which no trace is to be found beyond the limits of the Carpentras countryside.
In this respect, what have the Brachyderes and the Balaninus in common in the eyes of the townsman, the peasant, the child or the Cerceris? Absolutely nothing. The first has an almost cylindrical figure; the second, squat, short and thickset, is conical in front and elliptical, or rather shaped like the ace of hearts, behind.
Nevertheless the Cerceris makes no mistake: all this nation of insects, so indifferently attired, represents to her, as to the entomologist, the nation of the Buprestes.
The tubercled Cerceris "finds by the hundred" and almost immediately a species of weevil, the Cleona ophthalmica, on which it feeds its larvae, and which the human eye, though it searches for hours, can scarcely find anywhere.
Outside the burrows of the Great Cerceris and other Weevil-lovers, outside those of the Yellow-winged Sphex, the Cricket-slayer, there is plenty of distraction, thanks to the bustling movement of the hamlet. The mother has hardly come back home before she goes out again, soon returning laden with a new prey and once more setting out upon the chase.
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