A BEE-HUNTER 155 



disdains the wide breach in the corselet and prefers the 

 lesser one beneath the chin, for purely logical reasons 

 which we will now attempt to elicit. 



The moment the bee is stung I release it from the 

 aggressor. I am struck in the first place by the sudden 

 inertia of the antennae and the various members 

 of the mouth ; organs which continue to move for so 

 long a time in the victims of most predatory creatures. I 

 see none of the indications with which my previous 

 studies of paralysed victims have made me familiar : 

 the antennae slowly waving, the mandibles opening and 

 closing, the palpae trembling for days, for weeks, even 

 for months. The thighs tremble for a minute or two at 

 most ; and the struggle is over. Henceforth there is 

 complete immobility. The significance of this sudden 

 inertia is forced upon me : the Philanthus has stabbed 

 the cervical ganglions. Hence the sudden immobility of 

 all the organs of the head : hence the real, not the 

 apparent death of the bee. The Philanthus does not 

 paralyse merely, but kills. 



This is one step gained. The murderer chooses the 

 point below the chin as the point of attack, in order to 

 reach the principal centres of innervation, the cephalic 

 ganglions, and thus to abolish life at a single blow. The 

 vital centres being poisoned, immediate death must follow. 

 If the object of the Philanthus were merely to cause 

 paralysis she would plunge her sting into the defective 

 corselet, as does the Cerceris in attacking the weevil, 

 whose armour is quite unlike the bee's. Her aim is to kill 

 outright, as we shall presently see ; she wants a corpse, not 

 a paralytic. We must admit that her technique is admir- 

 able ; our human murderers could do no better. 



