The Hunting Wasps 



man feels with his finger, gives a jab and 

 the thing is done : the Bullock's legs double 

 up under him. 



This instantaneous death, this lightning- 

 stroke remained an awesome mystery to me. 

 It was only later, very much later, that I 

 learnt the secret of the slaughter-house, at 

 a time when, in the course of my promiscuous 

 reading, I was picking up a smattering of 

 anatomy. The man had cut through the 

 spinal marrow where it leaves the skull; he 

 had severed what our physiologists have 

 called the vital cord. To-day I might say 

 that he had operated in the manner of the 

 Wasps, whose lancet plunges into the nerve- 

 centres. 



Let us watch this spectacle a second time, 

 under more exciting conditions: I mean, in 

 the saladeiros of South America, those im- 

 mense establishments for killing and treat- 

 ing meat, where they slaughter as many as 

 twelve hundred Oxen a day. I will quote 

 the account of an eye-witness : ^ 



" The cattle arrive in large herds and the 

 matance begins on the day after the arrival. 



iL. Cou'n', in the Revue scientifique, 6 August, i88i. — 

 Author's Note. 



394 



