IX ADVANCED THEORIES 129 



grass between the wasp and an Eristalis bigger than 

 itself. The Dipteron is unarmed but strong, and a 

 shrill hum tells of desperate resistance. The wasp 

 carries a poignard, but does not know how to use it 

 methodically, and is ignorant of the vulnerable points 

 so well known to the hunters which need flesh that 

 must keep good for a considerable time. What its 

 nurslings want is a paste made of flies newly crushed, 

 so that it matters little how the game is killed. The 

 sting is used blindly — anywhere, pointed at the head, 

 sides, thorax, or under part of the victim, as chance 

 directs while the two wrestle. The Hymenopteron, 

 paralysing its victim, acts like the surgeon, who directs 

 his scalpel with a skilled hand ; the wasp when slaying 

 acts Hke a common assassin stabbing blindly in a 

 struggle. Thus the resistance of the Eristalis is long, 

 and its death rather the result of being cut up by a pair 

 of scissors than of stabs with a dagger. These scissors 

 are the wasp's mandibles, cutting, disembowelling, and 

 dividing. When the game has been garroted and 

 is motionless between the feet of its captor, a bite of 

 the mandibles severs the head from the body ; then 

 the wings are shorn off at the junction with the 

 shoulder ; the feet follow, cut off one by one ; then 

 the abdomen is rejected, but emptied of its interior, 

 which the wasp appears to preserve with her 

 favourite part, the thorax, which is richer in muscle 

 than the rest of the Eristalis. Without further 

 delay she flies off, carrying it between her feet. 

 Having reached the nest she will mash it up and 

 distribute it to the larvae. 



The hornet having seized a bee acts almost in 

 the same way, but it is a giant of a robber, and the 



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