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Here is my grub under the same conditions as just now, with this difference, that the back and not the belly of its victim is presented to its mandibles. I watch it for a whole afternoon. It writhes about; it moves its little head now in this direction, now in that, frequently laying it on the Cetonia, but without fixing it anywhere. The day draws to a close; and still it has accomplished nothing.
One day, through some fortuitous circumstance, or rather by mistake, she takes it into her head to strike two blows. As one is enough for the Cetonia, the repetition was of no value unless there was a change of prey. What was the new victim submitted to the butcher's knife? Apparently, a large Spider, since the Tarantula and the Garden Spider call for two thrusts.
Very expert in the method of attacking the Cetonia, they do not know how to set about the business of discreetly consuming a species of game new to them. All that escapes them is a few details, for the trade of an ogre fed on live flesh is familiar to them in its general features; and these unheeded details are enough to turn their food into poison.
This precursor, modified by varying circumstances, is supposed to have subdivided herself into ramifications, one of which, digging into vegetable mould and preferring the Cetonia to any other game inhabiting the same heap, became the Two-banded Scolia; another, also addicted to exploring the soil, but selecting the Oryctes, left as its descendant the Garden Scolia; and a third, establishing itself in sandy ground, where it found the Anoxia, was the ancestress of the Interrupted Scolia.
As I prepared for work again, I noticed that in the chalice of each flower, two or more green cetonias were to be found. The cetonia beetle is the deadliest foe of the rose, destroying it entirely, and since my boyhood, when I used to practise gardening at home, and was taught to kill a cetonia wherever I found it, I could not bear the sight of the glittering, green beetle.
The ample joint must be consumed with prudent skill: this part must be eaten before that and, after that, some other portion, always according to method, until the time approaches for the last bites. This marks the end of life for the Cetonia, but it also marks the end of the Scolia's feasting.
Pike put his finger in and fetched him out, and offered him a little change of joys, by putting a Limerick hook-through his thorax, and bringing it out between his elytra. Cetonia aurata liked it not, but pawed the air very naturally, and fluttered with his wings attractively. "I meant to have tried with a fern-web," said the angler; "until I saw one of these beggars this morning.
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