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How is it that the larva of the Philanthus, to take a particular case, receives three to five Bees from its mother when it is to become a female and not more than two when it is to become a male? Here the various head of game are identical in size, in flavour, in nutritive properties.
Paralysed, the creature is inert; but there are always internal energies and organic resistances which will not yield to the pressure of the manipulator. In vain would the Philanthus gnaw at the throat and squeeze the flanks; the honey would not return to the mouth as long as a trace of life kept the stomach closed. Matters are different with a corpse.
Perhaps the atmosphere of my cabinet and the dryness of the sand serving them for a bed have been too much for my nurslings, whose tender skins are used to the warm moisture of the subsoil. Let us try another method. To decide positively whether honey is or is not repugnant to the grubs of the Philanthus was hardly practicable by the method just explained.
In my cages I see nothing of the sort. Once the first excitement due to incarceration under the bell-glass or the wire-gauze cover has passed, the Bee seems hardly to trouble about her formidable neighbour. I see one side by side with the Philanthus on the same honeyed thistle-head: assassin and future victim are drinking from the same flask.
It goes without saying that under the bell-glass the laying does not take place: the mother is too cautious to abandon her egg to the perils of the open air. Why then, recognizing the absence of her underground burrow, does the Scolia uselessly pursue the Cetonia with the frantic ardour of the Philanthus flinging herself upon the Bee?
To-day as when I was a beginner, ever so long ago; in the north as in the south of the country which I explored; in mountainous regions as on the plains, the Philanthus follows an unvarying diet: she must have the Hive-bee, always the Bee and never any other, however closely various other kinds of game resemble the Bee in quality.
The Philanthus knows, instinctively, without having learned it, that honey, which is her ordinary fare, is, by a very singular "inversion," a mortal poison to her larvae. As an accomplished physiologist, Fabre conducts all kinds of experiments.
There remains this other problem, one of incomparable interest: why are the Bees robbed of their honey before being served to the larvae? I have said and I say again that the killing and squeezing cannot be explained and excused simply by reference to the Philanthus' love of gormandizing.
She must surely be obliged to follow the method of the Bembex, whose larva receives, at intervals, the necessary nourishment; the amount increasing as the larva grows. The facts confirm this deduction. I spoke just now of the tediousness of my watching when watching the colonies of the Philanthus. It was perhaps even more tedious than when I was keeping an eye upon the Bembex.
In the position assumed by the two as they struggle the abdomen of the Philanthus is inside and that of the bee outside; thus the sting of the latter has under its point only the dorsal face of the enemy, which is convex and slippery, and almost invulnerable, so well is it armoured.
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