Both larvae practise a special art of eating, which is determined by the
nature of the game. The Sphex, when sitting down to an Ephippiger, the food
that has fallen to its lot, knows thoroughly how to consume it and how to
preserve, to the very end, the glimmer of life which keeps it fresh; but,
if it has to browse upon a Cetonia-grub, whose different structure would
confuse its talents as a dissector, it would soon have nothing before it
but a heap of putrescence. The Scolia, in its turn, is familiar with the
method of eating the Cetonia-grub, its invariable portion; but it does not
understand the art of eating the Ephippiger, though the dish is to its
taste. Unable to dissect this unknown species of game, its mandibles slash
away at random, killing the creature outright as soon as they take their
first bites of the deeper tissues of the victim. That is the whole secret.

One more word, on which I shall enlarge in another chapter. I observe that
the Scoliae to which I give Ephippigers paralysed by the Sphex keep in
excellent condition, despite the change of diet, so long as the provisions
retain their freshness. They languish when the game goes high; and they die
when putridity supervenes. Their death, therefore, is due not to an
unaccustomed diet, but to poisoning by one or other of those terrible
toxins which are engendered by animal corruption and which chemistry calls
by the name of ptomaines. Therefore, notwithstanding the fatal outcome of
my three attempts, I remain persuaded that the unfamiliar method of rearing
would have been perfectly successful had the Ephippigers not gone bad, that
is, if the Scoliae had known how to eat them according to the rules.

What a delicate and dangerous thing is the art of eating in these
carnivorous larvae supplied with a single victim, which they have to spend
a fortnight in consuming, on the express condition of not killing it until
the very end! Could our physiological science, of which, with good reason,
we are so proud, describe, without blundering, the method to be followed in