A like feat seems about to be repeated; and this time before numerous witnesses, for all the family, working under the shade of the plane-trees, come and form a circle around the Sphex. They wonder at the unceremonious boldness of the insect, which is not diverted from its work by a gallery of onlookers; all are struck by its proud and lusty bearing, as, with raised head and the victim’s antennæ firmly gripped in its mandibles, it drags the enormous burden after it. I, alone among the spectators, feel a twinge of regret at the sight: ‘Ah, if only I had some live Ephippigers!’ I cannot help saying, with not the least hope of seeing my wish realized. ‘Live Ephippigers?’ replies Émile. ‘Why, I have some perfectly fresh ones, caught this morning!’ He dashes upstairs, four steps at a time, and runs to his little den, where a fence of dictionaries encloses a park for the rearing of some fine caterpillars of the Spurge Hawk-moth. He brings me three Ephippigers, the best that I could wish for, two females and a male. How did these insects come to be at hand, at the moment when they were wanted, for an experiment tried in vain twenty years ago? That is another story. A Lesser Grey Shrike had nested in one of the tall plane-trees of the avenue. Now a few days earlier, the mistral, the brutal north-west wind of our parts, blew with such violence as to bend the branches as well as the reeds; and the nest, turned upside down by the swaying of its support, had dropped its contents, four small birds. Next morning I found the brood upon the ground; three were killed by the fall, the fourth was still alive. The survivor was entrusted to the cares of Émile, who went Cricket-hunting twice a day on the neighbouring grass-plots for the benefit of his young charge. But Crickets are small and the nurseling’s appetite called for many of them. Another dish was preferred, the Ephippiger, of whom a stock was collected from time to time among the stalks and prickly leaves of the eryngo. The three insects which Émile brought me came from the Shrike’s larder. My pity for the fallen nestling had procured me this unhoped-for success.