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Updated: May 12, 2025
Slight variations in one and the same direction form a definite whole; and at long last the ancient precursor has become the Scolia of our own times.
The action of the Philanthus is explained by her passion for honey; hence the murders committed in excess of the needs of her family. The Scolia leaves us perplexed: she takes nothing from the Cetonia-grub, which is left without an egg; she stabs, though well aware of the uselessness of her action: the heap of mould is lacking and it is not her custom to transport her prey.
The find is a magnificent one indeed and of a nature to fill me with delight, awakening all my old recollections of the Bois des Issards. Any number of females of the Two-banded Scolia, disturbed at their work, are emerging here and there from the depth of the soil. The cocoons also are plentiful, each lying next to the skin of the victim on which the larva has fed.
She is seated athwart the Cetonia-grub; the mandibles grip a point on the dorsal surface of the thorax; the body, bent into a bow, passes under the larva and with the tip of the belly reaches the region of the neck. The Cetonia-grub, placed in serious peril, writhes, coils and uncoils itself, spinning round upon its axis. The Scolia does not interfere.
It is the determined attempt of a living split ring trying to slip one of its ends into another living split ring, which with equal determination refuses to open. The Scolia holds the victim subdued with her legs and mandibles; she tries one side, then the other, without managing to unroll the circle, which contracts still more as it feels its danger increasing.
Instead of imitating the Hedgehog and remaining contracted, it flees, belly in air; it foolishly adopts the very posture which allows the Scolia to mount to the assault and to reach the spot for the fatal stroke. The silly beast reminds me of the giddy Bee who comes and flings herself into the clutches of the Philanthus. Yet another who has learnt no lesson from the struggle for life.
In September I unearth from a heap of mould five Cetonia-grubs, paralysed by the Two-banded Scolia and bearing on the abdomen the as yet unhatched egg of the Wasp. I remove the eggs and install the helpless creatures on a bed of leaf-mould with a glass cover. I propose to see how long I can keep them fresh, able to move their mandibles and palpi.
The Scolia, in its turn, is familiar with the method of eating the Cetonia-grub, its invariable portion; but it does not understand the art of eating the Ephippiger, though the dish is to its taste. Unable to dissect this unknown species of game, its mandibles slash away at random, killing the creature outright as soon as they take their first bites of the deeper tissues of the victim.
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?
Who would venture to calculate the final chance on which the future of the Scolia, or of her precursor, is based, that complex chance whose factors are four infinitely improbable occurrences, one might almost say four impossibilities? And such a conjunction is supposed to be a fortuitous result, to which the present instinct is due! Come, come!
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