The Wasp, as Claire called it and as Réaumur named it of old, when speaking of a species of the same genus but of very different habits, the Wasp, so the letter told me, hoards in her nests a dumpy head of game, covered with black spots and smelling strongly of bitter almonds. I informed my daughter that this game was the larva of the Poplar Leaf-beetle (Chrysomela populi), a Beetle with red wing-cases reminding one, on a larger scale, of the Coccinella, or Common Ladybird. Insect and larva should be found together on the poplars of the neighbourhood, browsing promiscuously on the leaves. I added that a glorious opportunity had presented itself and that we must profit by it without delay. She therefore received instructions to keep a watch on this, that and the other and to furnish my insect laboratory with reed-stumps as and when they became colonized and with poplar-branches covered with Chrysomela-grubs. A collaboration was thus set up between Orange and Sérignan, the facts observed on both sides mutually completing and corroborating each other. Let us come quickly to the bundle of reeds, the first examination of which gratifies my fondest hopes. It contains things that reawaken all the enthusiasm of my youth: cells converted into game-baskets, eggs on the point of hatching beside the victuals, new-born grubs biting into their first victim, larvæ of fuller growth, weavers at work on their cocoons, in fact everything that one could wish for. Never, except with the Scoliæ in my heap of garden-mould, [59] has fortune served me better. Let us make an orderly inventory of these rich documents. Already various Bees that favour borrowed houses have shown us the insect discriminating between one dwelling and another and selecting the best to make their homes in. We now have a predatory Wasp who, following the example of the Osmiæ, the Leaf-cutters and the Cotton-bees, leaves the ancestral cabin for the cylinder of the reed, to which man’s pruning-knife has prepared the access. The natural shelter, of indifferent quality, is succeeded by the artificial and more convenient refuge. The Odynerus’ primitive lodging is the abandoned corridor of the Anthophora, or any other burrow dug in the earth by no matter what miner. The wooden tube, free from damp and bathed in sunshine, is recognized as preferable; and the insect hastens to adopt it when the opportunity occurs. The tunnel of the reed must be recognized as an excellent habitation, superior to all others, for never outside any abode of Anthophoræ have I seen a colony of Odyneri so populous as that of the Orange poultry-house.