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Updated: May 12, 2025
If the Wasp is entering the ground, the digging-operations, undertaken at an arbitrary point, quickly yield a cavity in which the Scolia disappears, separated from the surface by the whole track of shifted material. I can easily trace her passage through the thickness of the soil by certain long, winding cylinders, formed of loose materials in the midst of compact and stable earth.
To-morrow I will send more vigorous arms to continue the work of excavation. And now let us reward ourselves for our trouble by studying the tragedy in the bell-glass. Clumsy, awkward in her movements, the Scolia slowly goes the round of the circus. At the sight of the game, her attention is aroused.
The slippery surface only half paralyses this strange method of locomotion. We will now place side by side with the Cetonia-grub the larva of the Morning Anoxia, the prey of the Interrupted Scolia. It is very like the larva of the Common Cockchafer.
Well, how can this multitude of varied instincts teach us anything about gradual transformation? Will the one and only dagger-thrust of the Cerceris and the Scolia take us to the two thrusts of the Calicurgus, to the three thrusts of the Sphex, to the manifold thrust of the Ammophila? Yes, if we consider only numerical progression. One and one are two; two and one are three: so run the figures.
The Scolia does not bore the soil through which she passes: she excavates and ploughs it with her legs and forehead; and the stuff shifted remains where it lies, behind her, forthwith blocking the passage which she has followed.
The Scolia grips a point of the Anoxia-grub's thorax; she curves her body underneath it and, while encircling the grub, gropes with the tip of her abdomen along the median line of the larva's neck.
By degrees the indeterminate Wasp adopted the sturdy proportions demanded by underground labour. By degrees she learnt to stab her plump neighbours in scientific fashion; by degrees she acquired the difficult art of consuming her prey without killing it; at length, by degrees, aided by the richness of her diet, she became the powerful Scolia with whom we are familiar.
I must reject the larvae which are fed on one fat joint, such as those of the Scolia. The grub in fact attacks its prey at a determined point, dips its head and neck into the insect's body, rooting skilfully in the entrails to keep the game fresh until the end of the meal, and does not withdraw from the breach until the whole skin is emptied of its contents.
Substitute for this Sphex-larva a Scolia-larva of almost the same size; let the dish be the same though the guest is different; and healthy live flesh is promptly replaced by pestilent rotten flesh. That which under the mandibles of the Sphex would for a long while have remained wholesome food promptly becomes a poisonous liquescence under the mandibles of the Scolia.
When I compare them with the cast garment abandoned by the nymphs, I recognize some as belonging to the Anoxia and the rest to the Euchlora. With these data, I perceive with absolute certainty that the empty skin adhering to the cocoon of the Interrupted Scolia belongs to the Anoxia.
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