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Suddenly it curls up; with a stroke of its head it hurls the enemy to a distance. Undiscouraged by all her set-backs, the Wasp picks herself up, brushes her wings and resumes her attack upon the colossus, almost always by mounting the larva's hinder end. At last after all these fruitless attempts, the Scolia succeeds in achieving the correct position.
When the long-horned Beetle reaches the adult stage, he releases himself and emerges from the tree by following a vestibule which the larva's powerful tools have prepared beforehand.
The larva's violent contraction leaves but a single point of attack open to the sting, the under part of the neck, which is doubtless uncovered when the victim tries to defend itself with its mandibles; and yet a stab in this one point produces the most thorough paralysis that I have ever seen. It is the general rule that larvae possess a centre of innervation for each segment.
It is possible that I may not be quite accurate as to the precise order in which the organs are consumed, for it is not easy to perceive what happens inside the exploited larva's body. The ruling feature in this scientific method of eating, which proceeds from the parts less to the parts more necessary to preserve a remnant of life, is none the less obvious.
Each operator has her particular method, her particular kind of game, her particular points of attack and tricks of fence; but in the midst of this variety of talents we observe, immutable and predominant, the perfect accordance of the surgery with the victim's organization and the larva's needs. The art of one will not explain the art of another, no less exact in the delicacy of its rules.
The horny integuments of the pseudochrysalis have become detached from their contents, all of a piece, without a break, just as happened the year before with the skin of the secondary larva; and they thus form a fresh vesicular envelope, free from any adhesion to the contents and itself enclosed in the pouch formed of the secondary larva's skin.
It is by means of this equipoise between the mother's talents and the larva's that the Osmia and the Anthophora, in their early youth, escape some part of the dangers which threaten them.
The first mouthfuls consist of meat; and then nothing particular occurs: it is the natural diet. The honey is met with later, when the morsel has been largely bitten into. If hesitation and lack of appetite are displayed at this stage, they come too late in the day to be conclusive: the larva's discomfort may be due to other, known or unknown, causes.
A circular fence, we were saying, is begun on the bare rock. Before the mortar sets, which does not take long, the mason sticks a few stones into the soft mass, as the work advances. She dabs them half-way into the cement, so as to leave them jutting out to a large extent, without penetrating to the inside, where the wall must remain smooth for the sake of the larva's comfort.
The front part is of rather smaller diameter and is cut off on a slant, which enables the jar to be lifted and supported on the larva's back as it moves. Lastly, the mouth is circular, with a blunt edge. Any one finding one of these jars for the first time, among the stones at the foot of an oak, and wondering what its origin could be, would be greatly puzzled.
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