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Updated: May 12, 2025
But it is clear that, if the Scolia were to set to work as I did, there would be nothing left, after the first few bites, but an actual corpse, discharging fluids which would be fatal to it within twenty-four hours. The mother, it is true, in order to assure the immobility of her prey, has injected the poison of her sting into the nerve-centres.
To these three ramifications we must beyond a doubt add others which complete the series of the Scolia. As their habits are known to me only by analogy, I confine myself to mentioning them. The three species at least, therefore, with which I am familiar would appear to be derived from a common precursor.
As though somnolent, they did not stir unless excited by my teasing them with a bit of straw. Although more active and more ardent in the chase, the Two-banded Scolia likewise does not draw her weapon every time that I invite her. For all these huntresses there are moments of inaction which the presence of a fresh prey is powerless to disturb.
The larva of the Scolia, consuming its Cetonia-grub, has taught us all that we want to know on this subject in my earlier volume.
A corpse is not more inert. Never, since my remotest investigations, have I witnessed so profound a paralysis. I have seen many wonders due to the surgical talent of the Wasp; but to-day's marvel surpasses them all. I am doubly surprised when I consider the unfavourable conditions under which the Scolia operates. The other paralysers work in the open air, in the full light of day.
Unable to move, to wriggle, to scratch with its legs or snap with its mandibles, the Cetonia-larva, a new Prometheus bound, offers its defenceless flanks to the little Vulture destined to devour its entrails. Without too much hesitation, the young Scolia settles down to the wound made by my scalpel, which to the grub represents the wound whence I have just removed it.
On the other hand, we can quite easily, without arming the eye with a lens, perceive the mouth-apparatus and particularly the mandibles of either a honey-eater, such as an Osmia, Chalicodoma or Megachile, or a game-eater, such as a Scolia, Ammophila or Bembex. All these possess stout pincers, capable of gripping, grinding and tearing.
I shall return to this subject later, when I hope to demonstrate its great philosophical significance. Let us profit by these data and try to discover what happens when we give the Scolia food which is not properly its own.
Admirable artists in killing and paralysis, they kill or paralyse at every favourable opportunity, no matter what the final result as regards the egg. Their talent, which leaves our science speechless, has not a shadow of consciousness of the task accomplished. A second detail strikes me: the desperate persistence of the Scolia.
As my excavations in the Bois des Issards told me, the Scolia does not prepare a lodging for her family; she knows nothing of the art of cell-building. Her offspring occupies a fortuitous abode, on which the mother expends no architectural pains.
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