I02 INSECT LIFE 



VIII 



adhering to it. Its transparency allows us readily 

 to perceive rapid fluctuations within its body, undu- 

 lations following one another with mathematical 

 regularity, and which, beginning in the middle of the 

 body, are impelled, some forward and some backward. 

 These are due to the digestive canal, which imbibes 

 long draughts of the juices drawn from the sides of 

 the victim. 



Let us pause a moment before a spectacle so 

 calculated to arrest attention. The prey is laid on 

 its back, motionless. In the cell of Sphex flavipennis 

 it is a cricket, or three or four, piled up ; in that of 

 the Languedocian Sphex there is a single victim, but 

 proportionately large, a plump -bodied ephippiger. 

 The grub is a lost grub if torn from the spot whence 

 it draws nourishment. Should it fall, all is over, for 

 weak as it is, and without means of locomotion, how 

 would it again find the spot where it should quench 

 its thirst ? The merest trifle would enable the 

 victim to get rid of the animalcule gnawing at its 

 entrails, yet the gigantic prey gives itself up without 

 the least sign of protestation. I am well aware that 

 it is paralysed, and has lost the use of its feet from 

 the sting of its assassin, but at this early stage it 

 preserves more or less power of movement and sensa- 

 tion in parts unaffected by the dart. The abdomen 

 palpitates, the mandibles open and shut, the ab- 

 dominal styles and the antennae oscillate. What 

 would happen if the grub fixed on one of the spots yet 

 sensitive near the mandibles, or even on the stomach, 

 which, being tenderer and more succulent, would 

 naturally suggest itself as fittest for the first mouth- 

 fuls of the feeble grub ? Bitten on the quick parts, 



