the mother. The game promptly becomes putrid and the Scolia dies.

It is impossible for me to state the precise motives which lead to the
adoption of the spot on which the egg is laid; I can perceive general
reasons, but the details escape me, as I am not well enough versed in the
more delicate questions of anatomy and entomological physiology. What I do
know with absolute certainty is that the same spot is invariably chosen for
laying the egg. With not a single exception, on all the victims extracted
from the heap of garden mould--and they are numerous--the egg is fixed
behind the ventral surface, on the verge of the brown patch formed by the
contents of the digestive system.

If there be nothing to guide her, what chance has the mother of gluing her
egg to this point, which is always the same because it is that most
favourable to successful rearing? A very small point, represented by the
ratio of two or three square millimetres (About 1/100 square inch.--
Translator's Note.) to the entire surface of the victim's body.

Is this all? Not yet. The grub is hatched; it pierces the belly of the
Cetonia-larva at the requisite point; it plunges its long neck into the
entrails, ransacking them and filling itself to repletion. If it bite at
random, if it have no other guide in the selection of tit-bits than the
preference of the moment and the violence of an imperious appetite, it will
infallibly incur the danger of being poisoned by putrid food, for the
victim, if wounded in those organs which preserve a remnant of life in it,
will die for good and all at the first mouthfuls.

The ample joint must be consumed with prudent skill: this part must be
eaten before that and, after that, some other portion, always according to
method, until the time approaches for the last bites. This marks the end of