Were strength to take precedence over the other zoological attributes, the Scoliae would hold a predominant place in the front rank of the Wasps. Some of them may be compared in size with the little bird from the north, the Golden-crested Wren, who comes to us at the time of the first autumn mists and visits the rotten buds. The largest and most imposing of our sting-bearers, the Carpenter-bee, the Bumble-bee, the Hornet, cut a poor figure beside certain of the Scoliae. Of this group of giants my district possesses the Garden Scolia (S. hortorum, VAN DER LIND), who is over an inch and a half in length and measures four inches from tip to tip of her outspread wings, and the Hemorrhoidal Scolia (S. haemorrhoidalis, VAN DERLIND), who rivals the Garden Scolia in point of size and is distinguished more particularly by the bundle of red hairs bristling at the tip of the abdomen.
A black livery, with broad yellow patches; leathery wings, amber-coloured, like the skin of an onion, and watered with purple reflections; thick, knotted legs, covered with sharp hairs; a massive frame; a powerful head, encased in a hard cranium; a stiff, clumsy gait; a low, short, silent flight: this gives you a concise description of the female, who is strongly equipped for her arduous task. The male, being a mere philanderer, sports a more elegant pair of horns, is more daintily clad and has a more graceful figure, without altogether losing the quality of robustness which is his consort's leading characteristic.
It is not without a certain alarm that the insect-collector finds himself for the first time confronted by the Garden Scolia. How is he to capture the imposing creature, how to avoid its sting? If its effect is in proportion to the Wasp's size, the sting of the Scolia must be something terrible. The Hornet, though she unsheath her weapon but once, causes the most exquisite pain. What would it be like if one were stabbed by this colossus? The prospect of a swelling as big as a man's fist and as painful as the touch of a red-hot iron passes through our mind at the moment when we are bringing down the net. And we refrain, we beat a retreat, we are greatly relieved not to have aroused the dangerous creature's attention.
Yes, I confess to having run away from my first Scoliae, anxious though Iwas to enrich my budding collection with this magnificent insect. There were painful recollections of the Common Wasp and the Hornet connected with this excess of prudence. I say excess, for to-day, instructed by long experience, I have quite recovered from my former fears; and, when I see a Scolia resting on a thistle-head, I do not scruple to take her in my fingers, without any precaution whatever, however large she may be and however menacing her aspect. My courage is not all that it seems to be; Iam quite ready to tell the Wasp-hunting novice this. The Scoliae are notably peaceable. Their sting is an implement of labour far more than a weapon of war; they use it to paralyse the prey destined for their offspring; and only in the last extremity do they employ it in self-defence. Moreover, the lack of agility in their movements nearly always enables us to avoid their sting; and, even if we be stung, the pain is almost insignificant. This absence of any acute smarting as a result of the poison is almost constant in the Hunting Wasps, whose weapon is a surgical lancet and devised for the most delicate physiological operations.
Among the other Scoliae of my district I will mention the Two-banded Scolia (S. bifasciata, VAN DER LIND), whom I see every year, in September, working at the heaps of leaf-mould which are placed for her benefit in a corner of my paddock; and the Interrupted Scolia (S. interrupta, LATR.), the inhabitant of the sandy soil at the foot of the neighbouring hills. Much smaller than the two preceding insects, but also much commoner, a necessary condition of continuous observation, they will provide me with the principal data for this study of the Scoliae.
I open my old note book; and I see myself once more, on the 6th of August, 1857, in the Bois des Issards, that famous copse near Avignon which I have celebrated in my essay on the Bembex-wasps. (Cf. "The Hunting Wasps":
chapter 14.--Translator's Note.) Once again, my head crammed with entomological projects, I am at the beginning of my holidays which, for two months, will allow me to indulge in the insect's company.
A fig for Mariotte's flask and Toricelli's tube! (Edme Mariotte (1620-1684), a French chemist who discovered, independently of Robert Boyle the Irishman (1627-1691), the law generally known as Boyle's law, which states that the product of the volume and the temperature of a gas is constant at constant temperature. His flask is an apparatus contrived to illustrate atmospheric pressure and ensure a constant flow of liquid.--Translator's Note.) (Evangelista Toricelli (1608-1647), a disciple of Galileo and professor of philosophy and mathematics at Florence. His "tube" is our mercury barometer. He was the first to obtain a vacuum by means of mercury;and he also improved the microscope and the telescope.--Translator's Note.)This is the thrice-blest period when I cease to be a schoolmaster and become a schoolboy, the schoolboy in love with animals. Like a madder-cutter off for his day's work, I set out carrying over my shoulder a solid digging-implement, the local luchet, and on my back my game-bag with boxes, bottles, trowel, glass tubes, tweezers, lenses and other impedimenta. Alarge umbrella saves me from sunstroke. It is the most scorching hour of the hottest day in the year. Exhausted by the heat, the Cicadae are silent. The bronze-eyed Gad-flies seek a refuge from the pitiless sun under the roof of my silken shelter; other large Flies, the sobre-hued Pangoniae, dash themselves recklessly against my face.
