At the end of September, around the larva of a Jules’ Bembex (Bembex Julii), [35] which has reached almost a third of the size which it will finally attain, I find the following heads of game: six Echinomyia rubescens (two whole and four in pieces); four Syrphus corollæ (two complete, the other two broken up); three Gonia atra (all three untouched: one of them had that moment been brought along by the mother, which led to my discovering the burrow); two Pollenia rufescens (one untouched, the other partly eaten); one Bombylius (reduced to pulp); two Echinomyia intermedia (in bits); and two Pollenia floralis (likewise in bits): twenty pieces in all. This certainly makes a both plentiful and varied bill of fare; but, as the larva was only a third of its ultimate size, the complete menu might easily number as many as sixty items. It is not at all difficult to verify this sumptuous figure: I will myself take the place of the Bembex in her maternal functions and supply the larva with food till it is ready to burst. I move the cell into a little cardboard box which I furnish with a layer of sand. I place the larva on this bed, with all due consideration for its delicate skin. Around it, without omitting a single fragment, I arrange the provisions with which it was supplied. Then I go home, still holding the box in my hand, to avoid any shaking which might turn the house upside down and endanger my charge during a walk of several miles. Any one who had met me on the dusty Nîmes Road, dropping with fatigue and religiously carrying in my hand, as the sole fruit of my laborious trip, an ugly grub battening on a heap of Flies, would certainly have smiled at my simplicity. The journey was effected without damage: when I reached home, the larva was placidly eating its Flies as though nothing had happened. On the third day of captivity the provisions taken from the burrow were finished; the grub was rummaging with its pointed mouth among the heap of remains without finding anything to suit it; the dry particles taken hold of, all horny, juiceless bits, were rejected with disgust. The moment has come for me to continue the food supply. The first Flies within reach shall form my prisoner’s diet. I kill them by pressing them in my fingers, but without crushing them. The first ration consists of three Eristalis tenax and one Sarcophaga. [36] This is all gobbled up in twenty-four hours. Next day I provide two Eristales, or Drone-flies, and four House-flies. It was enough for the day, but left nothing over. I went on like this for eight days, giving the grub a larger portion every morning. On the ninth day the larva refused all food and began to spin its cocoon. The full record of this eight days’ feast amounts to sixty-two pieces, composed mainly of Drone-flies and House-flies, which, added to the twenty items found whole or in pieces in the cell, brings up the total to eighty-two.