204 THE SOLITARY WASPS. 



State of the Victims. 



Wlien Cerceris abandons her victim, after malaxation, it 

 presents disordered movements in all its members; incapable of 

 taking a step, it rolls on its back when one sets it on its legs; 

 the mandibles are immovable and the antennae nearly so. Spon- 

 taneous movement ceases about ten hours after malaxation, but 

 even now a light excitation of the abdomen leads to a moder- 

 ately lively reaction in the posterior legs. 



During all the time that this partial paralysis lasts the tarsi' 

 are animated with movements of oscillation which are quite 

 rapid at the beginning and which diminish at the end. These 

 oscillations last, usually, longer in the posterior legs than in the- 

 anterior. The nervous center which presides over their move- 

 ments is, in fact, further from the point pricked by the sting. 



Out of eight individuals, seven no longer presented the least 

 movement, either spontaneous or provoked, twenty-four hours 

 (and less than that for some of them), after the operation. The 

 other one presented no movement forty-eight hours after. It 

 is rare that the movements persist so long as this. Even by elec- 

 tricity it often is impossible, in less than twelve hours after the- 

 cessation of movement, to bring back the least trace of irrita- 

 bility. Thus the operation performed by Cerceris has the 

 effect of plunging the victim, after a brief delay, into a state 

 absolutely comparable with death. 



l^ow what is the rdle of the sting and what the role of the 

 malaxation? 



To learn this some bees were taken from Cerceris as soon as 

 they had been stung, at which point they fall into a state of 

 complete immovability, only the extremity of the abdomen 

 being, from time to time, lightly agitated. This state lasts onlj 

 a few instants, scarcely a minute ; soon the movements of oscilla- 

 tion begin, appearing firet in the posterior legs; some seconds- 

 later the intermediate tarsi begin to move; then the anterior 

 tarsi; a little later a jerky movement of the anterior legs and of" 



