第62章 THE BEE-EATING PHILANTHUS(6)

Since we are on the spot, let us prolong our stay and enquire into the customs of the Philanthus in a state of liberty. Serving dead prey, which goes bad in a few days, the Bee-huntress cannot adopt the method of certain insects which paralyse a number of separate heads of game and fill the cell with provisions, completing the ration before laying the egg. She needs the method of the Bembex, whose larva receives the necessary nourishment at intervals, as it grows larger. The facts confirm this deduction. Just now Idescribed as tedious my watches near the colonies of the Philanthi. They were tedious in fact, even more so perhaps than those which the Bembeces used to inflict upon me in the old days. Outside the burrows of the Great Cerceris and other Weevil-lovers, outside those of the Yellow-winged Sphex, the Cricket-slayer, there is plenty of distraction, thanks to the bustling movement of the hamlet. The mother has hardly come back home before she goes out again, soon returning laden with a new prey and once more setting out upon the chase. The going and coming is repeated at close intervals until the warehouse is full.

The burrow of the Philanthus is far from showing any such animation, even in a populous colony. In vain were my watches prolonged for whole mornings or afternoons; it was but very rarely that the mother whom I had seen go in with a Bee came out again for a second expedition. Two captures at most by the same huntress was all that I was able to see during my long vigils.

Feeding from day to day involves this deliberation. Once the family is supplied with a sufficient ration for the moment, the mother suspends her hunting-trips until further need arises and occupies herself with mining-work in her underground house. Cells are dug; I see the rubbish gradually pushed up to the surface. Beyond this there is not a sign of activity; it is as though the burrow were deserted.

The inspection of the site is no easy matter. The shaft descends to a depth of nearly three feet in a compact soil, either vertically or horizontally.

The spade and pick, wielded by stronger but less expert hands than mine, are indispensable, for which reason the process of excavation is far from satisfying me fully. At the end of this long tunnel, which the straw which I use for sounding despairs of ever reaching, the cells are at last encountered, oval cavities with a horizontal major axis. Their number and general arrangement escape me.

Some of them already contain the cocoon, which is slender and semitransparent, like those of the Cerceris, and, like them, suggests the shape of certain homoeopathic phials, with oval bellies surmounted by a tapering neck. The cocoon is fastened to the end of the cell by the tip of this neck, which is darkened and hardened by the larva's excrement; it has no other support. It looks like a short club fixed by the end of the handle along the horizontal axis of the nest. Other cells contain the larva in a more or less advanced stage. The grub is munching the last morsel served to it, with the scraps of the victuals already consumed lying around it.

Others lastly show me a Bee, one only, still untouched and bearing an egg laid on her breast. This is the first partial ration; the others will come as and when the grub grows larger. My anticipations are thus confirmed:

following the example of the Bembeces, the Fly-killers, the Philanthus, the Bee-killer, lays her egg on the first piece warehoused and at intervals adds to her nurselings' repast.

The problem of the dead game is solved. There remains this other problem, one of incomparable interest: why are the Bees robbed of their honey before being served to the larvae? I have said and I say again that the killing and squeezing cannot be explained and excused simply by reference to the Philanthus' love of gormandizing. Robbing the worker of her booty is nothing out of the way: we see it daily; but cutting her throat in order to empty her stomach is going beyond a joke. And, as the Bees packed away in the cellar are squeezed dry just as much as the others, the thought occurs to my mind that a rumpsteak with jam is not to everybody's liking and that the game stuffed with honey might well be a distasteful or even unwholesome dish for the Philanthus' larvae. What will the grub do when, sated with blood and meat, it finds the Bee's honey-bag under its mandibles and especially when, nibbling at random, it rips open the crop and spoils its venison with syrup? Will it thrive on the mixture? Will the little ogre pass without repugnance from the gamy flavour of a carcase to the scent of flowers? A blunt statement or denial would serve no purpose. We must see.

Let us see.

I rear some young Philanthus-grubs, already waxing large; but, instead of supplying them with the prey taken from the burrows, I give them game of my own catching, game replete with nectar from the rosemaries. My Bees, whom Ikill by crushing their heads, are readily accepted; and I at first see nothing that corresponds with my suspicions. Then my nurselings languish, disdain their food, give a careless bite here and there and end by perishing, from the first to the last, beside their unfinished victuals.

All my attempts miscarry: I do not once succeed in rearing my larvae to the stage of spinning the cocoon. And yet I am no novice in the functions of a foster-father. How many pupils have not passed through my hands and reached maturity in my old sardine-boxes as comfortably as in their natural burrows!

I will not draw rash conclusions from this check; I am conscientious enough to ascribe it to another cause. It may be that the atmosphere of my study and the dryness of the sand serving as a bed have had a bad effect on my charges, whose tender skins are accustomed to the warm moisture of the subsoil. Let us therefore try another expedient.