e outer world, but
hunting-trails which the insect has followed once, without going back
to them. What was the Wasp seeking when she riddled the soil with these
tunnels which are now full of running sands? No doubt the food for
her family, the larva of which I possess the empty skin, now an
unrecognizable shred.

I begin to see a little light: the Scoliae are underground workers. I
already expected as much, having before now captured Scoliae soiled with
little earthy encrustations on the joints of the legs. The Wasp, who is
so careful to keep clean, taking advantage of the least leisure to brush
and polish herself, could never display such blemishes unless she were a
devoted earth-worker. I used to suspect their trade, now I know it. They
live underground, where they burrow in search of Lamellicorn-grubs,
just as the Mole burrows in search of the White Worm. (The larva of the
Cockchafer. This grub takes three years or more to arrive at maturity
underground.--Translator's Note.) It is even possible that, after
receiving the embraces of the males, they but very rarely return to the
surface, absorbed as they are by their maternal duties; and this,
no doubt, is why my patience becomes exhausted in watching for their
entrance and their emergence.

It is in the subsoil that they establish themselves and travel to and
fro; with the help of their powerful mandibles, their hard cranium,
their strong, prickly legs, they easily make themselves paths in
the loose earth. They are living ploughshares. By the end of August,
therefore, the female population is for the most part underground,
busily occupied in egg-laying and provisioning. Everything seems to tell
me that I should watch in vain for the appearance of a few females in
the broad daylight; I must resign myself to excavating at random.

The result was hardly commensurate with the labour which I expended on
digging. I found a few cocoons, nearly all broken, like the one which I
already possessed, and, like it, bearing on their side the tattered skin
of a larva of the same Scarabaeid. Two of these cocoons which are still
intact contained a dead adult Wasp. This was actually the Two-banded
Scolia, a precious discovery which changed my suspicions into a
certainty.

I also unearthed some cocoons, slightly different in appearance,
containing an adult inmate, likewise dead, in whom I recognized the
Interrupted Scolia. The remnants of the provisions again consisted of
the empty