第11章 THE SCOLIAE(4)

If I could at least identify the Scarabaeidae whose larvae form the prey of the two Scoliae, the problem would be half solved. Let us try. I collect all that the luchet has turned up: larvae, nymphs and adult Beetles. My booty comprises two species of Lamellicorns: Anoxia villosa and Euchlora Julii, both of whom I find in the perfect state, usually dead, but sometimes alive. I obtain a few of their nymphs, a great piece of luck, for the larval skin which accompanies them will serve me as a standard of comparison. I come upon plenty of larvae, of all ages. When I compare them with the cast garment abandoned by the nymphs, I recognize some as belonging to the Anoxia and the rest to the Euchlora.

With these data, I perceive with absolute certainty that the empty skin adhering to the cocoon of the Interrupted Scolia belongs to the Anoxia. As for the Euchlora, she is not involved in the problem: the larva hunted by the Two-banded Scolia does not belong to her any more than it belongs to the Anoxia. Then with which Scarabaeid does the empty skin which is still unknown to me correspond? The Lamellicorn whom I am seeking must exist in the ground which I have been exploring, because the Two-banded Scolia has established herself there. Later--oh, very long afterwards!--I recognized where my search was at fault. In order not to find a network of roots beneath my luchet and to render the work of excavation lighter, I was digging the bare places, at some distance from the thickets of holm-oak;and it was just in those thickets, which are rich in vegetable mould, that I should have sought. There, near the old stumps, in the soil consisting of dead leaves and rotting wood, I should certainly have come upon the larva so greatly desired, as will be proved by what I have still to say.

Here ends what my earlier investigations taught me. There is reason to believe that the Bois des Issards would never have furnished me with the precise data, in the form in which I wanted them. The remoteness of the spot, the fatigue of the expeditions, which the heat rendered intensely exhausting, the impossibility of knowing which points to attack would undoubtedly have discouraged me before the problem had advanced a step farther. Studies such as these call for home leisure and application, for residence in a country village. You are then familiar with every spot in your own grounds and the surrounding country and you can go to work with certainty.

Twenty-three years have passed; and here I am at Serignan, where I have become a peasant, working by turns on my writing-pad and my cabbage-patch.

On the 14th of August, 1880, Favier (An ex-soldier who acted as the author's gardener and factotum.--Translator's Note.) clears away a heap of mould consisting of vegetable refuse and of leaves stacked in a corner against the wall of the paddock. This clearance is considered necessary because Bull, when the lovers' moon arrives, uses this hillock to climb to the top of the wall and thence to repair to the canine wedding the news of which is brought to him by the effluvia borne upon the air. His pilgrimage fulfilled, he returns, with a discomfited look and a slit ear, but always ready, once he has had his feed, to repeat the escapade. To put an end to this licentious behaviour, which has cost him so many gaping wounds, we decided to remove the heap of soil which serves him as a ladder of escape.

Favier calls me while in the midst of his labours with the spade and barrow:

"Here's a find, sir, a great find! Come and look."I hasten to the spot. The find is a magnificent one indeed and of a nature to fill me with delight, awakening all my old recollections of the Bois des Issards. Any number of females of the Two-banded Scolia, disturbed at their work, are emerging here and there from the depth of the soil. The cocoons also are plentiful, each lying next to the skin of the victim on which the larva has fed. They are all open but still fresh: they date from the present generation; the Scoliae whom I unearth have quitted them not long since. I learnt later, in fact, that the hatching took place in the course of July.

In the same heap of mould is a swarming colony of Scarabaeidae in the form of larvae, nymphs and adult insects. It includes the largest of our Beetles, the common Rhinoceros Beetle, or Oryctes nasicornis. I find some who have been recently 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.