74 INSECT LIFE v 



of most varied size, proportioned to that of their 

 different captors, which may thus choose according 

 to their convenience. They are far more vulnerable 

 than all the others at the one point where the sting 

 of the Hymenopteron can penetrate successfully, for 

 at that point, all easily accessible to the dart, crowd 

 the motor centres of feet and wings. At this point 

 the three thoracic ganglia of Weevils lie very close, 

 the hind two are contiguous. At that same spot in 

 the Buprestids the second and third are welded in 

 one large mass a little distance from the first. And 

 as it is precisely Buprestids and Weevils which are 

 hunted, to the absolute exclusion of all other game, 

 by the eight species of Cerceris, whose food stores 

 of Coleoptera have been ascertained, a certain 

 internal likeness, namely, in centralisation of the 

 nervous system must be the explanation why there 

 are heaped in the dens of various Cerceris victims, 

 outwardly so unlike. 



In this choice, upon which even transcendent 

 knowledge could not improve, such an assembly of 

 difficulties is splendidly resolved, that one asks if 

 one be not the dupe of some involuntary illusion, 

 and if preconceived theories have not obscured the 

 reality of facts, in short, whether the pen has not 

 described imaginary marvels. A scientific result is 

 only solidly established when confirmed by experi- 

 ments repeated in every possible way. Now let 

 us submit to experimental proof the physiological 

 operation taught us by Cerceris tuberculata. If it 

 be possible to obtain artificially what the Hymen- 

 opteron obtained by her sting, i.e. abolition of 

 movement, and long preservation of the victim in a 



