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 feeds in infancy on Cetonia-
larvae and particularly on those of C. aurata, C. morio and C. floricola.
These three species dwell together in the rubbish-heap just explored; their
larvae differ so little that I should have to examine them minutely to
distinguish the one from the other; and even then I should not be certain
of succeeding. It seems probable that the Scolia does not choose between
them, that she uses all three indiscriminately. Perhaps she even assails
other larvae, inhabitants, like the foregoing, of heaps of rotting
vegetable-matter. I therefore set down the Cetonia genus generally as
forming the prey of the Two-banded Scolia.