Note 3 — Chapter i · THE BUPRESTIS-HUNTING CERCERIS

‘You would have shared our enthusiasm, my friend, at the sight of the beautiful specimens of Buprestes which this original method of treasure-hunting disclosed, one after the other, to our eager gaze. You should have heard our exclamations each time that the mine was turned upside down and new glories stood revealed, rendered more brilliant still by the blazing sun; or when we discovered, here, larvæ of all ages fastened to their prey, there, the cocoons of those larvæ all encrusted with copper, bronze, and emerald. I who had been studying insects at close quarters for three or four decades—alas!—had never witnessed such a lovely sight nor enjoyed so great a treat. It only needed your presence to double our delight. Our ever-increasing admiration was devoted by turns to those brilliant Beetles and to the marvellous discernment, the astonishing sagacity of the Cerceris who had buried and stored them away. Will you believe it, of more than four hundred Beetles3 that we dug up, there was not one but belonged to the old genus Buprestis! Not even the very smallest mistake had been made by the wise Wasp. What can we not learn from this intelligent industry in so tiny an insect! What value would not Latreille4 have set upon this Cerceris’ support of the natural method!