I cut down the boughs that have suffered most damage. From one limb split into fragments I obtain a dozen of the Capricorn’s larvæ. My inspection of the neighbouring hedge-rows provides me with the perfect insect. And now we’ll have it out together, O destroyer of my leafy arbour! You shall make amends to me for your misdeeds; you shall die by the Scorpion.
The adults indeed succumb; but the larvæ resist. Lodged in a glass jar, with tiny morsels of the demolished tree, they quietly resume their gnawing. If the provisions do not dry up, the grubs wounded by the Scorpion complete their larval life without accident.
The Capricorn of the Oak, Cerambyx heros, behaves in a like fashion. The great horn-wearer perishes; his grub does not mind the sting a jot, for, when restored to its place in the gallery, it tunnels the wood as it did before and completes its development.
The result is the same with the Common Cockchafer. The stabbed insect dies in a [[94]]few minutes; the White Worm,[2] on the contrary, holds out, goes underground and climbs back to the surface to gnaw the lettuce-stalk which I have given it. If my patience as an insect-rearer did not tire, the victim of the accident, from which it quickly recovers, would become a Cockchafer, as may be seen from the paunch sleek and glossy with health.
A near kinsman of the Stag-beetle, Dorcus parallelopipedus, whose larva I find in an old tamarisk-stump, adds his evidence to that of the above: the adult insect dies, the larva resists. These instances are sufficient; there is no need to continue on these lines.
Cetonia-, Oryctes-, Capricorn-, Cockchafer- and Dorcus-grubs are fat creatures, addicted to a vegetarian diet. Do these plump larvæ owe their immunity to the nature of their victuals? Or, on the other hand, can the fatty stratum, in which the reserves of these insatiable eaters accumulate, neutralize the virulence of the sting? Let us enquire of some lean flesh-eaters.
I choose the largest of our Ground-Beetles, [[95]]Procrusies coriaceus, a saturnine hunter whom I meet at the foot of the walls, disembowelling a Snail. A bold highwayman and built for fighting, he welds his wing-cases into an inviolable cuirass. I pare away a little of his armour behind, in order to render accessible to the Scorpion’s sting the only penetrable part, the upper surface of the abdomen.
We see a repetition of the Gold Beetle’s wretched end. The fight against the agonies of the sting would strike us with horror, if things were happening in a higher world. Thus struggles a Dog tortured by the municipal sausage seasoned with strychnine. At first the wounded Beetle scurries off desperately. Suddenly, he stops and raises himself high on his stiffened legs; he lifts his hinder part, lowers his head and supports himself on his mandibles as though about to turn a somersault. A jolt topples him over. He falls; quickly he stands up again and resumes his unnatural attitude. To look at him you would say that his joints were controlled by wires. He is like an automaton worked by a jerky spring. Another shake, another fall, another recovery: and this goes [[96]]on for twenty minutes or so. At last the demented Beetle collapses on his back and does not get up again, though his limbs continue to move. Next morning he is absolutely motionless.
And what of the larva? Well, though destitute of the layer of fat which would seem to protect the grubs of the Cetonia, the Oryctes and the others, the meagre grub of the Procrustes is so little harmed by the Scorpion’s sting that, a fortnight after the ordeal, it buries itself in the ground and digs itself a cell in which the transformation is effected. Lastly, not long after, the adult emerges from the soil in perfect health. Therefore neither the diet nor the degree of stoutness is responsible for this immunity.
Nor is the place occupied in the entomological series, as the Moths will tell us, now that the Beetles have spoken. The first to be questioned is the Zeuzera, whose caterpillar has a calamitous effect upon various trees and shrubs. I take a mother at the moment when she is slipping her long ovipositor into the crevices in the bark of a lilac-tree, to lay her eggs. She is magnificent in her white costume adorned with [[97]]steel-blue spots.[3] I place her at the Scorpion’s mercy. The business is not protracted. No sooner is the Zeuzera stung than she dies, with no disordered motions. Death is gentle to her.