of the inner shell with such accuracy. Is it the art practised by the
tailor when cutting his stuff, with mandibles taking the place of scissors?
I hardly venture to admit as much: the tissue is so tough and the circle of
division so precise. The mandibles are not sharp enough to cut without
leaving a ragged edge; and then what geometrical certainty they would need
for an operation so perfect that it might well have been performed with the
compasses!

I suspect therefore that the Scolia first fashions the outer sac in
accordance with the usual method, that is, by distributing the silk
uniformly, without any special preparation of one part of the wall more
than of another, and that it afterwards changes its method of weaving in
order to attend to the main work, the inner shell. In this it apparently
imitates the Bembex (Cf. "The Hunting Wasps": chapters 14 to 16.--
Translator's Note.), which weaves a sort of eel-trap, whose ample mesh
allows it to gather grains of sand outside and encrust them one by one in
the silky network, and completes the performance with a cap fitting the
entrance to the trap. This provides a circular line of least resistance,
along which the casket breaks open afterwards. If the Scolia really works
in the same manner, everything is explained: the eel-trap, while still
open, enables it to soak with varnish both the inside and the outside of
the inner shell, which has to acquire the consistency of parchment; lastly,
the cap which completes and closes the structure leaves for the future a
circular line capable of splitting easily and neatly.

This is enough on the subject of the Scolia-grub. Let us go back to its
provender, of whose remarkable structure we as yet know nothing. In order
that it may be consumed with the delicate anatomical discretion imposed by
the necessity of having fresh food to the last, the Cetonia-grub must be
plunged into a state of absolute immobility: any twitchings on its part--as