adjacent pine-trees and is shining on the heap, numbers of male Scoliae
arrive from the neighbouring fields, where they have been slaking their
thirst on the eryngo-heads. Incessantly coming and going with an indolent
flight, they circle round the heap. If some female rise from the soil,
those who have seen her dart forward. A not very turbulent affray decides
which of the suitors shall be the possessor; and the couple fly away over
the wall. This is a repetition of what I used to see in the Bois des
Issards. By the time that August is over. The males have ceased to show
themselves. The mothers do not appear either: they are busy underground,
establishing their families.

On the 2nd of September, I decide upon a search with my son Emile, who
handles the fork and the shovel, while I examine the clods dug up. Victory!
A magnificent result, finer than any that my fondest ambition would have
dared to contemplate! Here is a vast array of Cetonia-larvae, all flaccid,
motionless, lying on their backs, with a Scolia's egg sticking to the
centre of their abdomen; here are young Scolia-larvae dipping their heads
into the entrails of their victims; here are others farther advanced,
munching their last mouthfuls of a prey which is drained dry and reduced to
a skin; here are some laying the foundation of their cocoons with a reddish
silk, which looks as if it had been dyed in Bullock's blood; here are some
whose cocoons are finished. There is plenty of everything, from the egg to
the larva whose period of activity is over. I mark the 2nd of September as
a red-letter day; it has given me the final key to a riddle which has kept
me in suspense for nearly half a century.

I place my spoils religiously in shallow, wide-mouthed glass jars
containing a layer of finely sifted mould. In this soft bed, which is
identical in character with the natal surroundings, I make some faint
impressions with my fingers, so many cavities, each of which receives one