Social life in the insect world / by J. H. Fabre.

  • Fabre, Jean-Henri, 1823-1915.
Date:
1912
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Social life in the insect world / by J. H. Fabre. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    205/372 (page 173)
    proof. The carnivorous grub is killed by honey. Is the honey-fed grub, inversely, killed by carnivorous diet ? Here, again, we must make certain exceptions, observe a certain choice, as in the previous experiments. It would obviously be courting a fiat refusai to offer a heap of young crickets to the larvæ of the Anthophorus and the Osmia, for example ; the honey-fed grub would not bite such food. It would be absolutely useless to make such an experiment. We must find the équivalent of the bee smeared with honey ; that is, we must offer the larva its ordinary food with a mixture of animal matter added. I shall experiment with albumen, as provided by the egg of the hen ; albumen being an isomer of fibrine, which is the principal element of ail flesh diet. Osmia tricornis will lend itself to my experiment better than any other insect on account of its dry honey, or bee-bread, which is largely formed of flowery pollen. I knead it with the albumen, graduating the dose of the latter so that its weight largely exceeds that of the bee- bread. Thus I obtain pastes of various degrees of con- sistency, but ail firm enough to support the larva without danger of immersion. With too fluid a mixture there would be a danger of death by drowning. Finally, on each cake of albuminous paste I install a larva of medium growth. This diet is not distasteful ; far from it. The grubs attack it without hésitation and devour it with every appearance of a normal appetite. Matters could not go better if the food had not been modified according to «ay recipes. Ail is eaten ; even the portions which I feared contained an excessive proportion of albumen.