No matter, let us see what we can do with my pitiful bag. A Cerceris has just entered her gallery with her usual prey; before she comes out again for a new expedition, I place a Weevil a few inches from the hole. The insect moves about; when it strays too far, I restore it to its position. At last the Cerceris shows her wide face and emerges from the hole; my heart beats with excitement. The Wasp stalks about the approaches to her home for a few moments, sees the Weevil, brushes against him, turns round, passes several times over his back and flies away without honouring my capture with a touch of her mandibles: the capture which I was at such pains to acquire. I am confounded, I am floored. Fresh attempts at other holes lead to fresh disappointments. Clearly these dainty sports-women will have none of the game which I offer them. Perhaps they find it uninteresting, not fresh enough. Perhaps, by taking it in my fingers, I have given it some odour which they dislike. With these epicures a mere alien touch is enough to produce disgust. Should I be more fortunate if I obliged the Cerceris to use her sting in self-defence? I enclosed a Cerceris and a Cleonus in the same bottle and stirred them up by shaking it. The Wasp, with her sensitive nature, was more impressed than the other prisoner, with his dull and clumsy organization; she thought of flight, not of attack. The very parts were interchanged: the Weevil, becoming the aggressor, at times seized with his snout a leg of his mortal enemy, who was so greatly overcome with fear that she did not even seek to defend herself. I was at the end of my resources; yet my wish to behold the catastrophe was but increased by the difficulties already experienced. Well, I would try again. A bright idea flashed across my mind, entering so naturally into the very heart of the question that it brought hope in its train. Yes, that must be it; the thing was bound to succeed. I must offer my scorned game to the Cerceris in the heat of the chase. Then, carried away by her absorbing preoccupation, she would not perceive its imperfections.