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Updated: June 19, 2025
Let us first of all note how the observation which Dufour had made of the nest of the Cerceris was transformed in his hands, and what developments he was able to evolve therefrom. Since they have been definitely established by Fabre these curious facts have been well-known. They form perhaps the greatest prodigy presented by entomology, that science so full of marvels.
The eyes of the Cerceris are like magnifying glasses, veritable microscopes, which immediately distinguish, in the vast field of nature, an object that human vision is powerless to discover.
Some of them already contain the cocoon, which is slender and semitransparent, like those of the Cerceris, and, like them, suggests the shape of certain homoeopathic phials, with oval bellies surmounted by a tapering neck. The cocoon is fastened to the end of the cell by the tip of this neck, which is darkened and hardened by the larva's excrement; it has no other support.
A slight displacement, caused by the effort of the insects' backs, is all that can possibly be effected. Ammophilus and Cerceris, Sphex and Pompilus excavate their burrows wherever they please; they carry their prey thither on the wing, or, if too heavy, drag it afoot. The Necrophorus knows no such facilities in his task.
Celibacy, unknown among the savages of South Africa and South America. Centipedes. Cephalopoda, absence of secondary sexual characters in. Cephalopterus ornatus. Cephalopterus penduliger. Cerambyx heros, stridulant organ of. Ceratodus, paddle of. Ceratophora aspera, nasal appendages of. Ceratophora Stoddartii, nasal horn of. Cerceris, habits of. Cercocebus aethiops, whiskers, etc., of.
Who would think of connecting two creatures so unlike, of calling them by the same name? Outside the professional classifiers, no one would dare to. The Cerceris, more perspicacious, knows each of them for a Weevil, a quarry with a concentrated nervous system, lending itself to the surgical feat of her single stroke of the lancet.
What of that species of indefinable memory which permits the red ant, the Bembex, the Cerceris, the Pompilus, the Chalicodoma and so many others to "find themselves," to orientate themselves with infallible certainty and incredible accuracy?
Equally magnificent, some of them were azure blue, others copper gilt, for the cigar-roller has a twofold colouring. How did the Cerceris manage to recognize in these jewels the Weevil, the near relative of the vulgar Phynotomus?
After these exclusive ones, who disdain to vary their meals, let us mention the eclectics, who, in a group which is generally well-defined, are able to select among different kinds of game appropriate to their bulk. Cf. "The Hunting Wasps": chapters 2 and 3. The Buprestis-hunting Cerceris adopts all the Buprestes indiscriminately, so long as they are not beyond her strength.
In this marvellous study, which constitutes, with the history of the Cerceris, the finest masterpiece of experimental entomology, Fabre brilliantly establishes all the details of that curious law which in the Hymenoptera rules both the distribution and the succession of the sexes.
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