to the Great Cerceris a Buprestis, the
delight of one of her near kinsfolk. She will have nothing to say to the
sumptuous dish. Accept that! She, a Weevil-eater! Never in this world!
Present her with a Cleonus of a different species, or any other large
Weevil, of a sort which she has most probably never seen before, since
it does not figure on the inventory of the provisions in her burrows.
This time there is no show of disdain: the victim is seized and stabbed
in the regulation manner and forthwith stored away.

Try to persuade the Hairy Ammophila that Spiders have a nutty flavour,
as Lalande asserts; and you will see how coldly your hints are received.
(Joseph Jerome Le Francois de Lalande (1732-1807), the astronomer.
Even after he had achieved his reputation, he sought means, outside the
domain of science, to make himself talked about and found these in
the display partly of odd tastes, such as that for eating Spiders and
caterpillars, and partly of atheistical opinions.--Translator's Note.)
Try merely to convince her that the caterpillar of a Butterfly is as
good to eat as the caterpillar of a Moth. You will not succeed. But, if
you substitute for her underground larva, which I suppose to be grey,
another underground larva striped with black, yellow, rusty-red or
any other tint, this change of coloration will not prevent her from
recognizing, in the substituted dish, a victim to her liking, an
equivalent of her Grey Worm.

So with the rest, so far as I have been able to experiment with them.
Each obstinately refuses what is alien to her hunting-preserves,
each accepts whatever belongs to them, always provided that the game
substituted is much the same in size and development as that whereof
the owner has been deprived. Thus the Tarsal Tachytes, an appreciative
epicure of tender flesh, would not consent to replace her pinch of young
Acridian-grubs with the one big Locust that forms the food of Panzer's
Tachytes; and the latter, in her turn, would never exchange her adult
Acridian for the other's menu of small fry. The genus and the species
are the same, but the age differs; and this is enough to decide the
question of acceptance or refusal.

When its depredations cover a somewhat extensive group, how does
the insect manage to recognize the genera, the species composing her
allotted portion and to distinguish them from the rest with an assured
vision which the inventory of her burrows proves never to be at
fault? I