The little dark red ribbon has not always protected me from the tribulations the entomologist must expect when carrying on experiments upon the highway. Since dawn I had been lying in ambush at the bottom of a ravine; Sphex occitanica was the object of my early visit. A party of three women vintagers passed on their way to work. A glance was cast on the seated figure apparently lost in thought. “Good day” was politely offered and politely answered. At sunset the women returned with full baskets. The man was still there, seated on the same stone, his eyes fixed on the same spot. My motionless figure, my persistent stay in that lonely place, must have struck them greatly. As they passed I saw one tap her forehead, and heard her whisper, “A poor innocent, pe’caïre! a poor innocent!” and all three made the sign of the cross.
An innocent, an idiot, a poor inoffensive creature who is deficient; and all three crossed themselves—an idiot being one to them marked by God’s seal. “How?” said I. “What cruel mockery of fate! You who are labouring to discover what is instinct and what reason in the animal; you yourself are a [[136]]half-wit in the eyes of these women! What humiliation! However, pe’caïre, that term of supreme commiseration in Provençal, uttered from the bottom of the heart, made me quickly forget the Innocent.”
It is to that same ravine that I invite my reader, if he is not repelled by the small annoyances of which I have given him a foretaste. S. occitanica haunts these parts, not in numbers giving one another rendezvous when nidification is going on, but solitary individuals far apart, wherever their vagabond peregrinations have led them. Just as their relative S. flavipennis seeks the society of relations and the animation of a work-yard and company, so, on the other hand, does the Languedocian Sphex prefer calm, isolation, and solitude. Graver in behaviour, more formal in manner, more elegant of figure, and in more sombre attire, she always lives apart, careless of what others are doing, disdaining companionship, a very misanthrope among Sphegidæ. S. flavipennis is sociable; S. occitanica is unsociable—a profound difference, alone sufficient to characterise them.
This suggests how greatly the difficulty of observing the latter is increased. No long meditated experiment is possible, nor can one attempt to repeat it a second time if the first has failed. If you make preparations beforehand,—for instance, if you put in reserve a piece of game to substitute for that of the Sphex,—it is to be feared, indeed it is almost certain, that she will not appear, or if she comes, your preparations turn out useless. Everything must be improvised at once—conditions which I have not always been able to realise as I could have wished.
[To face p. 136.
SPHEX OCCITANICA TAKING A SUN BATH
Let us take courage; the position is good. [[137]]Many a time I have here surprised the Sphex reposing on a vine-leaf, exposed to the full rays of the sun. The insect, lying flat and spread out, is voluptuously enjoying the delights of warmth and light. From time to time a kind of frenzy of pleasure bursts forth in her; she thrills with well-being, drums rapidly on her resting-place with the points of her feet, and produces a sound somewhat like the roll of a drum, or heavy rain falling on foliage perpendicularly. You may hear this joyous drumming several paces off. Then again comes perfect stillness, followed by a fresh nervous commotion, and that waving of tarsi which is a sign of supreme happiness. I have known some of these ardent sun-worshippers suddenly leave a half-finished burrow to settle on a neighbouring vine and take a bath of sun and light, returning reluctantly to give a careless sweep to the hole, and finally abandon the workshop, unable longer to resist the temptation of luxuriating on a vine leaf. Perhaps this voluptuous resting-place is also an observatory whence to inspect the neighbourhood, and espy and choose prey. This Sphex catches only the ephippiger of the vine, scattered here and there on the leaves or on any convenient bush. The game is succulent—all the more that only females full of eggs are selected.
Let us pass over numerous expeditions, fruitless researches, and the tedium of long waiting, and present the Sphex to the reader just as she shows herself to the observer. Here she is, at the bottom of a hollow way with high sandy banks. She comes on foot, but aids herself with her wings in dragging along her heavy captive. The ephippiger’s antennæ, like [[138]]long fine threads, are the harness ropes. With her mandibles and holding her head high, she grasps one of them, passing it between her feet, and the prey is dragged on its back. If some unevenness of ground should oppose itself to this style of haulage, she stops, clasps the ample provender, and transports it by very short flights, going on foot between whiles whenever this is possible. One never sees her undertake sustained flights for long distances carrying prey, as do those strong cruisers, the Bembex and Cerceris, which will carry perhaps for a good half mile through the air, the former their Diptera, the latter their weevils—very light prey compared with the huge ephippiger. The overwhelming size of its captive forces S. occitanica to convey it along the ground—a means of transit both slow and difficult. The same reason—namely, the great size and weight of the prey—entirely upsets the usual order followed by the Hymenoptera, in their labours,—an order well known, and consisting in first hollowing a burrow and then victualling it. The prey not being disproportioned to the size of the spoiler, facility of transport by flight allows the Hymenopteron a choice as to the position of her domicile. What matter if she has to hunt at considerable distances? Having made a capture, she returns home with rapid flight; it is indifferent to her whether she is near or far. Therefore she prefers the spot where she was born, and where her predecessors have lived; there she inherits deep galleries, the accumulated labour of former generations; with a little repair they can be used as avenues to new chambers, better defended than would be a [[139]]single excavation a little below the surface made annually. Such is the case with Cerceris tuberculata and Philanthus apivorus, and even if the inherited dwelling should not be solid enough to resist wind and weather from one year’s end to another, and to be handed down to the next generation, at all events the Hymenopteron finds conditions of greater safety in spots consecrated by ancestral experience. There she hollows out galleries, each serving as corridors to a group of cells, thus economising the labour to be expended on the entire egg-laying.
In this way are formed, not true societies, there being no concerted effort to a common end, but at least gatherings where the sight of other Sphegidæ no doubt animates the labour of each. In fact, one can notice between these small tribes, sprung from one and the same stock, and the solitary miners, a difference in activity, recalling in one case the emulation of a populous workshop, and in the other the dulness of labourers in the tedium of isolation. For the animal as well as man activity is contagious, and excited by its own example. Let us sum up. Where there is a moderate weight for the spoiler, it is possible to carry it on the wing for a great distance, and then the Hymenopteron can arrange the burrows at pleasure, choosing by preference its birthplace. From this preference of the birthplace results an agglomeration—a coming together of insects of the same species, whence arises emulation in their work. This first step towards social life is the result of easy journeys. Is it not so with man? excuse the comparison! Men, where ways are bad, [[140]]build solitary cottages, while where there are good roads, they collect in populous cities, served by railroads, which, so to say, annihilate distance; they assemble in immense human hives called London or Paris.