Insect life: Souvenirs of a naturalist

To the attentive eye the sight of industrial insects exhibiting the most refined art in their labours is a spectacle both strange and sublime. Human Reason is confounded by Inst...

But the evidence of the scalpel forces me to give up this family idyll. There is no outward sign of sex in the Scarabæus, but on dissecting a couple employed on one and the same...

Let us suppose the Scarabæus lucky enough to have met with a reliable partner, or, better still, that he has no self-invited associate. The hole is ready, made in friable earth,...

Every one has met with books which, according to his turn of mind, have been epoch-making, opening to him horizons whose very existence he had never guessed. They throw wide ope...

In a few days the galleries are ready, especially as after some repairs those of the preceding year are used again. Other Cerceris, as far as I know, have no fixed home, transmi...

Should one insist and explain that the larvæ require not preserved food which could never have the properties of flesh still palpitating, but prey yet alive, so to say, in spite...

Let us look at the Sphex at work in flat ground, as is much more frequently the case. As soon as the burrow is hollowed out, the chase begins. Let us profit by the absence of th...

I wished to ascertain at my own expense if the Sphex’s sting be very painful—that sting which knocks over robust victims with frightful rapidity. Well, I own with great admirati...

After denuding itself of the abdominal sheath, which draws away with it the wing-cases, the Sphex again is motionless for about three days. During this interval the wings assume...

The hornet having seized a bee acts almost in the same way, but it is a giant of a robber, and the fight cannot last long, despite the sting of the victim. Upon the very flower...

If carrying the prey on the wing has not been attempted even in such conditions as the above, it is clear that the Sphex is incapable of flight with so heavy a load. To this imp...

The three females, two stabbed under my eyes, remained mine. All the feet were quite paralysed, Whether in its natural position or on its back or side, the creature retains whic...

At length the game is brought to the edge of the well, its antennæ hanging into the mouth, and there is an exact repetition of the method used by S. flavipennis, and, though in...

During the ascent some of us felt a kind of sea-sickness, caused partly by fatigue and partly by the rarefaction of the air. The barometer sank 140 millimetres; the air we breat...

This outside work is done with a self-contained air and great diligence. High on its legs, its abdomen outstretched at the end of its long petiole, it turns round and moves its...

The nest is certainly there—underground, at the depth of a few inches: in a little cell, dug in cool firm sand, is an egg, perhaps a larva, which the mother feeds daily with fli...

Let us proceed to consider the manner of hunting, by way of throwing a final light on the subject. In prey withdrawn from the clasp of a Bembex, one may not infrequently observe...

Let us end this chapter by the history of the larva. Its monotonous life offers nothing remarkable during the two weeks while it eats and grows. Then comes making a cocoon. The...

What would happen in the presence of the larva? That was the second part of the question. To continue the experiment with the same Bembex would not have offered sufficient guara...

The construction, the axis of which is always nearly vertical, with an orifice opening upward, so that the fluid honey may not run out, differs a little in form, according to it...

The next morning I returned to the nests. It was still too cold, and work was suspended. When the dew was dried the masons set to work. I saw a bee, but without the white spot,...

The reverse of this is not less conclusive. To a mason bee which was laying up food I would give a cell only just sketched out and unable to receive the honey paste. This cell,...