The Hunting Wasps

There are for each one of us, according to his turn of mind, certain books that open up horizons hitherto undreamed of and mark an epoch in our mental life. They fling wide the...

With my memory full of the prowess of the Buprestis-huntress, I watched for an opportunity to observe in my turn the labours of the Cerceres; and I watched to such good purpose...

The wasp has told us part of her secret by showing us the spot which her sting touches. Does this solve the question? Not yet, nor by a long way. Let us go back for a moment, fo...

Under their powerful armour, which no dart can penetrate, the insects of the Beetle tribe offer but a single vulnerable spot to the sting-bearing enemy. This defect in the breas...

There is no doubt that the Sphex displays her most cunning resources at the moment of immolating a Cricket; it is important, therefore, to ascertain the manner wherein the victi...

The egg of the Yellow-winged Sphex is white, elongated, cylindrical, slightly bow-shaped and measures three to four millimetres [17] in length. So far from being laid anywhere o...

The species of the genus Sphex are fairly numerous, but are for the most part strangers to my country. As far as I know, the French fauna numbers only three, all lovers of the h...

When the chemist has fully prepared his plan of research, he mixes his reagent at the most convenient moment and lights a flame under his retort. He is the master of time, place...

To paralyse her prey, the Languedocian Sphex, I have no doubt, pursues the method of the Cricket-huntress and drives her lancet repeatedly into the Ephippiger’s breast in order...

The Sphex has shown us how infallibly and with what transcendental art she acts when guided by the unconscious inspiration of her instinct; she is now going to show us how poor...

Thanks to its isolated position, which leaves it freely exposed on every side to atmospheric influence; thanks also to its height, which makes it the topmost point of France wit...

I have told in the last chapter how, on the ridges of Mont Ventoux, at a height of nearly 6000 feet, I had one of those entomological windfalls which would be rich in results if...

A slender waist, a slim shape; an abdomen tapering very much at the upper part and fastened to the body as though by a thread; black raiment with a red sash across the belly: th...

One of my favourite spots for the observations which I will now describe is not far from Avignon, on the right bank of the Rhône, opposite the mouth of the Durance. It is the Bo...

After our list, in the last chapter, of the fare on which the Bembex feed in the larval form, it behoves us to seek the motive that induces these Wasps to adopt a method of vict...

I have shown the Bembex hovering with her cumbrous prize above the nest and then dropping vertically and very slowly: a hesitating descent accompanied by a sort of plaintive hum...

The Ammophila sinking her well at a late hour of the day leaves her work, after closing the orifice with a stone lid, flits away from flower to flower, goes to another part of t...

One day in May I was walking up and down, on the look-out for anything fresh that might be taking place in the harmas [43] laboratory. Favier was not far off, at work in the kit...

I have described the Ammophila’s hunting tactics in detail. The facts which I ascertained seem to me so rich in results that, even if the harmas laboratory supplied me with noth...

The larvæ of the various Hunting Wasps require their prey to be incapable of movement, so that there may be no resistance on the victim’s part, which would be a source of danger...