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Updated: May 31, 2025
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.
I have observed them in many other insects, either in the larval or in the perfect state; but in this respect there is none to equal the grub of the game-hunting Wasp, which is all speckled with white. I think I see the reason. Let us consider two larvæ which eat live prey: that of the Sphex and that of the Hydrophilus.
That is the amount of food necessary for a larva during its evolution, and these insects are in fact large enough to supply a considerable amount of nourishment. When the Sphex interrupts digging operations it is to fly on a hunting expedition. It soon returns with a cricket it has seized, holding it by one antenna which it turns round in its jaws.
The Englishman has his roast-beef; the German his sauerkraut; the Russian his caviare; the Neapolitan his macaroni; the Piedmontese his polenta; the man of Carpentras his tian. The Tachytes has her Locust. Her national dish is also that of the Sphex, with whom I boldly associate her.
What tactics "studied, scientific, worthy of the athletes of the ancient palaestra" are those which the Sphex employs to paralyse the Cricket and the Cerceris to capture the Cleona, to secure them in a suitable place, so as to operate on them more surely and at leisure!
And, after making use of a host of different viands in order to attain the culinary variety which is to-day adopted by the whole of the Sphex nation, lo and behold, each species confines itself to a single sort of game, outside which every specimen is obstinately refused, not at table, of course, but in the hunting-field!
The Languedocian Sphex, sprawling flat upon the vine leaves, grows dizzy with the heat and frisks for very pleasure; "with its feet it taps rapidly on its resting-place, and thus produces a drumming like that of a shower of rain falling thickly on the leaves."
It is simply the victim of a general paralysis. The cause of the paralysis. It was evidently of the greatest interest to know how the Sphex contrived this capture, and what method it used to suppress the movements of the prey.
The Sphex places an egg on this motionless prey, and the larva which emerges from it devours the cricket. Here assuredly is a marvellous and certain instinct.
He is then capable of reflection, and the series of acts which he accomplishes are not ordained with such inflexibility that it is impossible for him to modify them in order to conform them to varying circumstances. The Sphex occitanica acts in the same manner as its relative in this complicated art of laying up provisions for the family. The differences are only in detail.
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