Nouveaux souvenirs entomologiques - Livre II / Étude sur l'instinct et les moeurs des insectes

A collection of field essays that record prolonged, patient observations of insect life, focusing on nesting, hunting, provisioning, larval stages and varied metamorphoses. The narrator describes a small experimental plot and practical methods, presents case studies of many hymenopterans and related insects (including solitary wasps, pompilids, eumenines, ants and blister-beetle larvae), and examines instances of parasitism, instinctive behavior and insect psychology. Practical anecdotes and experimental notes are balanced with concise theoretical reflection on the nature and limits of instinct, all rendered in accessible natural-history prose.