The whole family is put at work. All its members become very active. But nothing turns up: three hours pass and not one of us has found the Caterpillar.
The Sand-Wasp does not find it either. I see her hunting persistently in spots where the earth is slightly cracked. She wears herself out in clearing-operations; with a great effort she removes lumps of earth the size of an apricot-stone. These spots are soon given up, however. Then a suspicion comes to me: perhaps the Gray Worm, foreseeing a gathering storm, has dug its way lower down. The huntress Wasp very well knows where it lies, but cannot get it out from its deep hiding-place. Wherever the Sand-Wasp scratches, there must a Gray Worm be; she leaves the place only because she cannot dig deep enough. It was very stupid of me not to have thought of this earlier. Would such an experienced huntress pay any attention to a place where there is really nothing? What nonsense!
I make up my mind to help her. The insect, at this moment, is digging a tilled and absolutely bare spot. It leaves the place, as it has already done with so many others. I myself continue the work, with the blade of a knife. I do not find anything, either; and I leave it. The insect comes back and again begins to scratch at a certain part of my excavations. I understand:
“Get out of that, you clumsy fellow!” the Wasp seems to say. “I’ll show you where the thing lives!”
I dig at the spot she indicates and unearth a Gray Worm. Well done, my clever Sand-Wasp! Did I not say that you would never have raked at an empty burrow?
Following the same system, I obtain a second Gray Worm, followed by a third and a fourth. The digging is always done at bare spots that have been turned by the pitchfork a few months earlier. There is absolutely nothing to show the presence of the Caterpillar from without. Well, Favier, Claire, Aglaé, and the rest of you, what have you to say? In three hours you have not been able to dig me up a single Gray Worm, whereas this clever huntress supplies me with as many as I want, once that I have thought of coming to her assistance!
THE ATTACK
I leave the Wasp her fifth Worm, which she unearths with my help. I will tell in numbered paragraphs the various acts of the gorgeous drama that passes before my eyes. I am lying on the ground, close to the slaughterer, and not one detail escapes me.