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Updated: May 31, 2025
A slight displacement, caused by the effort of the insects' backs, is all that can possibly be effected. Ammophilus and Cerceris, Sphex and Pompilus excavate their burrows wherever they please; they carry their prey thither on the wing, or, if too heavy, drag it afoot. The Necrophorus knows no such facilities in his task.
These researches show us that in the Cerceris instinct is still subject to defect. In some neighbouring genera we can seize it, as it were, in process of formation. The way in which the Bembex, or Sand Wasp, provisions burrows by maternal foresight is much less mechanical than that of the Sphex. It is again Fabre who has described with most care the customs of this hymenopterous insect.
These include the Languedocian Sphex, with her Ephippiger, and the Hairy Ammophila, with her Grey Worm. There is none of this sudden constriction, dividing the creature into two disparate halves, when the victuals consist of numerous and comparatively small items. The larva then retains its usual shape, being obliged to pass, at brief intervals, from one joint in its larder to the next.
At one time I had my doubts about Panzer's Tachytes, whom I grudged a prey to which the White-banded Sphex might have laid claim. To-day I have no such doubts: she is an honest worker and her game is really the result of her hunting.
The Scoliae of my experiments are not novices, far from it: they are the descendants of carvers that have practised their art since Scoliae first came into the world; nevertheless they all perish from the decomposition of the rations supplied, when I try to feed them on Ephippigers paralysed by the Sphex.
It is a heavy burden for the slender Sphex to bear. Sometimes on foot, dragging its burden after it, sometimes flying, and carrying the suspended cricket always in a passive condition, the burrow is gradually reached, not without difficulty. In spite of appearances, the cricket is not dead; it cannot move, but if kept for several days it will not putrefy, and its joints remain supple.
They tell me that in Texas a Pepsis, a huntress of big game akin to the Calicurgi, gives chase to a formidable Tarantula and vies in daring with our Ringed Calicurgus, who stabs the Black-bellied Lycosa. They tell me that the Sphex-wasps of the Sahara, a rival of our own White-banded Sphex, operate on Locusts. But we must limit these quotations, which could easily be multiplied.
Its manner of action, as described by Léon Dufour, much resembles that of the Sphex, and it would be superfluous to describe it. The only fact which I wish to mention, and which has been put out of doubt by the illustrious naturalist, is this: the Buprestis are paralysed, not dead; all the joints of the antennæ and legs remain flexible and the intestines in good condition.
For the rest, if it is not possible to appraise the psychic faculties possessed by the ancestors of existing animals we may at least observe certain facts which put us on the road of explanation. An interesting member of the Hymenoptera, the Sphex, assures food for the early days of the life of its larvæ in a curious way.
So again, if the paralysed prey with an egg attached to it be taken out of the cell, the Sphex after entering and finding the cell empty, nevertheless closes it up in the usual elaborate manner. Bees will try to escape and go on buzzing for hours on a window, one half of which has been left open.
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