passage is free therefore, or at most blocked by a few landslips, of which
the Tachytes will easily dispose. This explains her rapid journey
underground.

But what does she do there? For she is always there, in the few
observations which chance affords me. A subterranean excursion would not
attract the Wasp if it had no object. And its object is certainly the
search for some sort of game for her larvae. The inference becomes
inevitable: the Anathema Tachytes, who explores the Mole-cricket's
galleries, gives her larvae this same Mole-cricket as their food. Very
probably the specimen selected is a young one, for the adult insect would
be too big. Besides, to this consideration of quantity is added that of
quality. Young and tender flesh is highly appreciated, as witness the
Tarsal Tachytes, the Black Tachytes and the Mantis-killing Tachytes, who
all three select game that is not yet made tough by age. It goes without
saying that the moment the huntress emerged from the ground I proceeded to
dig up the track. The Mole-cricket was no longer there. The Tachytes had
come too late; and so had I.

Well, how right was I to define the Tachytes as a Locust lover! What
constancy in the gastronomic rules of the race! And what tact in varying
the game, while keeping within the order of the Orthoptera! What have the
Locust, the Cricket, the Praying Mantis and the Mole-cricket in common, as
regards their general appearance? Why, absolutely nothing! None of us, if
he were unfamiliar with the delicate associations dictated by anatomy,
would think of classing them together. The Tachytes, on the other hand,
makes no mistake. Guided by her instinct, which rivals the science of a
Latreille, she groups them all together. (Pierre Andre Latreille (1762-
1833), one of the founders of entomological science, a professor at the
Musee d'histoire naturelle and member of the Academie des sciences.--