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Indeed, the well-being of the Scoliae demands something more: those powerful bodies must not retain even the power to quiver, lest they derange a method of feeding which has to be conducted with the greatest caution. The Cetonia-grub to which the Two-banded Scolia's egg is fastened fulfils the required conditions admirably.
Another ardent huntress, the Interrupted Scolia, refused the Cetonia-grub, which is of like habits with the Anoxia-larva; the Two-banded Scolia also refused the Anoxia. She, a Philanthus, take this Fly for a Bee! What next!
The Garden Scolia attacks Oryctes nasicornis; the Two-banded Scolia the Cetonia; the Interrupted Scolia the Anoxia. All three operate below ground, under the most unfavourable conditions; and all three have for their victim a larva of one of the Scarabaeidae, which, thanks to the exceptional arrangement of its nerve-centres, lends itself, alone of all larvae, to the Wasp's successful enterprises.
Not knowing how to eat it according to rule, the larva will kill it; and by next day the victuals will have become so much toxic putrescence. I have already told how I found it impossible to rear the Two-banded Scolia on Oryctes-larvae, fastened down to deprive them of movement, or even on Ephippigers, paralysed by the Languedocian Sphex.
Free to shift in one direction or the other, within narrow limits, its point is most probably seeking for the little mass of nerve-tissue which must be pricked, or at least sprinkled with poison, to obtain overwhelming paralysis. I will not close this report of the duel without relating a few further facts, of minor importance. The Two-banded Scolia is a fierce persecutor of the Cetonia.
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.
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