encounters probably found her lacking
in expert knowledge; her race cannot have handed down to her other
than very indeterminate propensities, for she does not appear to make
frequent use of the Rhynchites, as is proved by my infrequent discovery
of them amid the mass of my numerous excavations. For the first time,
perhaps, passing through a vineyard, she saw the rich Beetle gleaming on
a leaf; it was not for her a dish in current consumption, consecrated by
the ancient usages of the family. It was something novel, exceptional,
extraordinary. Well, this extraordinary creature is recognized with
certainty as a Weevil and stored away as such. The glittering cuirass
of the Rhynchites goes to take its place beside the grey cloak of the
Phynotomus. No, it is not the colour that guides the choice.

Neither is it the shape. Cerceris arenaria hunts any medium-sized
Weevil. I should be putting the reader's patience to too great a test if
I attempted to give in this place a complete inventory of the specimens
identified in her larder. I will mention only two, which my latest
searches around my village have revealed. The Wasp goes hunting on
the holm-oaks of the neighbouring hills the Pubescent Brachyderes (B.
pubescens) and the Acorn-weevil (Balaninus glandium). What have
these two Beetles in common as regards shape? I mean by shape not
the structural details which the classifier examines through his
magnifying-glass, not the delicate features which a Latreille would
quote when drawing up a technical description, but the general picture,
the general outline that impresses itself upon the vision even of an
untrained eye and makes the man who knows nothing of science and above
all the child, a most perspicacious observer, connect certain animals
together.

In this respect, what have the Brachyderes and the Balaninus in common
in the eyes of the townsman, the peasant, the child or the Cerceris?
Absolutely nothing. The first has an almost cylindrical figure; the
second, squat, short and thickset, is conical in front and elliptical,
or rather shaped like the ace of hearts, behind. The first is black,
strewn with cloudy, mouse-grey spots; the second is yellow ochre. The
head of the first ends in a sort of snout; the head of the second tapers
into a curved beak, slender as a horse-hair and as long as the rest of
the body. The Brachyderes has a massive proboscis, cut off short; the
Balaninus seems to be smoking an insanely long cigarett