The Hunting Wasps 



ruptlble ! Incorruptible, did I say? It is 

 much more than that ! The game is brought 

 to a condition which prevents desiccation, 

 leaves the joints supple, keeps all the organs, 

 both internal and external, in their pristine 

 freshness and, in short, places the sacrificed 

 insect in a state that differs from life only by 

 its corpse-like immobility. 



This is the theory that satisfied Leon 

 Dufour, as he contemplated the incompre- 

 hensible marvel of those dead Buprestes 

 proof against corruption. A preserving- 

 fluid, incomparably superior to aught that 

 human science can produce, explains the mys- 

 tery. He, the master, the ablest of them all, 

 an expert in the niceties of anatomy; he who, 

 with magnifying-glass and scalpel, examined 

 the whole entomological series, leaving no 

 nook or corner unexplored; he, in short, for 

 whom insect organism possessed no secrets 

 can think of nothing better than an antiseptic 

 fluid to give at least the semblance of an ex- 

 planation of a fact that leaves him con- 

 founded. I crave permission to emphasize 

 this comparison between animal instinct and 

 the reasoning-power of the sage in order the 

 better to bring to light, in due season, the 

 overwhelming superiority of the former. 

 i6 



