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Updated: May 6, 2025
This is enough on the subject of the Scolia-grub. Let us go back to its provender, of whose remarkable structure we as yet know nothing.
This is the game I want, a corpulent prey, of a size suited to the Scolia and, what is more, in splendid condition, artistically paralysed according to rule by a master among masters. As usual, I install my three Ephippigers in a glass jar, on a bed of mould; I remove the egg of the Sphex and on each victim, after slightly incising the skin of the belly, I place a young Scolia-grub.
I make a fine incision in its belly and I place the Scolia on the opening. The dish pleases my charge; and it would be strange indeed if this were not so, considering that another Scolia-grub, the larva of the Garden Scolia, feeds on the Oryctes. The dish suits it, for before long it has burrowed half-way into the succulent paunch. This time all goes well. Will the rearing be successful?
To these delicate questions no one, I think, can reply. Where science is silent, perhaps the grub will speak. We will try. I move from its position a Scolia-grub which has attained a quarter or a third of its full growth. The long neck plunged into the victim's belly is rather difficult to extract, because of the need of molesting the creature as little as possible.
The empty skin is pushed back to make space; the dining-room, a shapeless cavity with crumbling walls, is tidied up a little; and the Scolia-grub sets to work on its cocoon without further delay. The first courses form a general scaffolding, which finds a support here and there on the earthen walls, and consist of a rough, blood-red fabric.
Thus bitton at several points, covered with wounds, the Fly is soon a shapeless mass which would putrefy very quickly if the meagre dish were not devoured at a single meal. Allow the Scolia-grub the same unlicensed gluttony: it would perish beside its corpulent victim, which should have kept fresh for a fortnight, but which almost from the beginning would be no more than a filthy putrescence.
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