Note 1 — Chapter i · THE BUPRESTIS-HUNTING CERCERIS
Alexander Teixeira de Mattos translation
It was a monograph by the then father of entomology, the venerable scientist Léon Dufour,1 on the habits of a Wasp that hunted Buprestis-beetles. Certainly, I had not waited till then to interest myself in insects; from my early childhood I had delighted in Beetles, Bees, and Butterflies; as far back as I can remember, I see myself in ecstasy before the splendour of a Ground-beetle’s wing-cases or the wings of Papilio machaon, the Swallowtail. The fire was laid; the spark to kindle it was absent. Léon Dufour’s essay provided that spark.