A BEE-HUNTER 153 



pones attack. The choice is made, and Philanthus 

 throws herself upon her victim. 



Turn by turn tumbled and tumbling, the two insects 

 roll over and over. But the struggle soon quiets down, 

 and the assassin commences to plunder her prize. I have 

 seen her adopt two methods. In the first, more usual 

 than the other, the bee is lying on the ground, upon 

 its back, and Philanthus, mouth to mouth and abdomen 

 to abdomen, clasps it with her six legs, while she seizes its 

 neck in her mandibles. The abdomen is then curved 

 forward and gropes for a moment for the desired spot in 

 the upper part of the thorax, which it finally reaches. 

 The sting plunges into the victim, remains in the wound 

 for a moment, and all is over. Without loosing the 

 victim, which is still tightly clasped, the murderer restores 

 her abdomen to the normal position and holds it pressed 

 against that of the bee. 



By the second method Philanthus operates standing 

 upright. Resting on the hinder feet and the extremity 

 of the folded wings, she rises proudly to a vertical posi- 

 tion, holding the bee facing her by her four anterior 

 claws. In order to get the bee into the proper position 

 for the final stroke, she swings the poor creature round 

 and back again with the careless roughness of a child 

 dandling a doll. Her pose is magnificent, solidly based 

 upon her sustaining tripod, the two posterior thighs and 

 the end of the wings, she flexes the abdomen forwards and 

 upwards, and, as before, stings the bee in the upper part 

 of the thorax. The originality of her pose at the moment 

 of striking surpasses anything I have ever witnessed. 



The love of knowledge in matters of natural history is 

 not without its cruelties. To make absolutely certain of 



