THE FLY-HUNT
Too Long; Didn't Read
After our list, in the last chapter, of the fare on which the Bembex feed in the larval form, it behoves us to seek the motive that induces these Wasps to adopt a method of victualling so exceptional among the digger-insects. Why, instead of previously storing a sufficient quantity of provisions on which the egg could be laid—which would enable the mother to close the cell immediately afterwards and never to return to it—why, I ask, does she tie herself down for a fortnight to this incessant, toilsome coming and going from the burrow to the fields and from the fields to the burrow, forcing her way each time through the unstable sand, either to go hunting or to bring the larva her latest capture? It is, first and foremost, a question of having fresh victuals for her larva: an all-important question, for the grub absolutely refuses any high or tainted game. Like the grubs of the other Diggers, it wants fresh meat and nothing but fresh meat.