tly liberated, whose wing-cases, of a glossy
brown, now see the sunlight for the first time; I find others enclosed
in their earthen shell, almost as big as a Turkey's egg. More frequent
is her powerful larva, with its heavy paunch, bent into a hook. I note
the presence of a second bearer of the nasal horn, Oryctes Silenus,
who is much smaller than her kinswoman, and of Pentodon punctatus, a
Scarabaeid who ravages my lettuces.

But the predominant population consists of Cetoniae, or Rosechafers,
most of them enclosed in their egg-shaped shells, with earthen walls
encrusted with dung. There are three different species: C. aurata, C.
morio and C. floricola. Most of them belong to the first species. Their
larvae, which are easily recognized by their singular talent for walking
on their backs with their legs in the air, are numbered by the hundred.
Every age is represented, from the new born grub to the podgy larva on
the point of building its shell.

This time the problem of the victuals is solved. When I compare the
larval slough sticking to the Scolia's cocoons with the Cetonia-larvae
or, better, with the skin cast by these larvae, under cover of the
cocoon, at the moment of the nymphal transformation, I establish an
absolute identity. The Two-banded Scolia rations each of her eggs with
a Cetonia-grub. Behold the riddle which my irksome searches in the Bois
des Issards had not enabled me to solve. To-day, at my threshold, the
difficult problem becomes child's play. I can investigate the question
easily to the fullest possible extent; I need not put myself out at all;
at any hour of the day, at any period that seems favourable, I have
the requisite elements before my eyes. Ah, dear village, so poor, so
countrified, how happily inspired was I when I came to ask of you
a hermit's retreat, where I could live in the company of my beloved
insects and, in so doing, set down not too unworthily a few chapters of
their wonderful history!

According to the Italian observer Passerini, the Garden Scolia feeds
her family on the larvae of Oryctes nasicornis, in the heaps of old
tan-waste removed from the hot-houses. I do not despair of seeing
this colossal Wasp coming to establish herself one day in my heaps of
leaf-mould, in which the same Scarabaeid is swarming. Her rarity in
my part of the country is probably the only cause that has hitherto
prevented the realization of my wishes.

I have just shown that the Two-banded Scolia fe