178 SOCIAL LIFE IN THE INSECT WORLD 



bee must therefore be killed outright instead of being 

 paralysed, otherwise the honey could not be removed. 

 Instantaneous death can be assured only by a lesion 

 of the primordial centre of life. The sting must there- 

 fore pierce the cervical ganglions ; the centre of inner- 

 vation upon which the rest of the organism is dependent. 

 This can only be reached in one way : through the 

 neck. Here it is that the sting will be inserted ; and here 

 it is inserted in a breach in the armour no larger than 

 a pin's head. Suppress a single link of this closely knit 

 chain, and the Philanthus reared upon the flesh of bees 

 becomes an impossibility. 



That honey is fatal to larvae is a fact pregnant with 

 consequences. Various predatory insects feed their young 

 with honey-makers. Such, to my knowledge, are the 

 Philanihtis corcnatus, Fabr., which stores its burrows with 

 the large Halictus ; the Philanthus raptor ^ Lep., which 

 chases all the smaller Halictus indifferently, being itself a 

 small insect ; the Cerceris ornata, Fabr., which also kills 

 Halictus ; and the Palaris flavipes, Fabr., which by a 

 strange eclecticism fills its cells with specimens of most 

 of the Hymenoptera which are not beyond its powers. 

 What do these four huntresses, and others of similar 

 habits, do with their victims when the crops of the latter 

 are full of honey ? They must follow the example of 

 the Philanthus or their offspring would perish ; they must 

 squeeze and manipulate the dead bee until it yields up 

 its honey. Everything goes to prove as much ; but 

 for the actual observation of what would be a notable 

 proof of my theory I must trust to the future. 



