330 The Microscope. 



always with certain classes of booty, death comes to the relief 

 of the victims. Now the problem is, What preserves the spider 

 stung to death ? Do spiders practise antisepsis ? Did they 

 fight bacteria before Lister ? Here lies the key to the problem. 

 Others have searched it out already. Mr. Guenzius, a mission- 

 ary in S. Africa, wrote some time since : " I cannot help think- 

 ing that the poisonous acid of Hyraenoptera has an antiseptic 

 and preserving property ; for caterpillars and locusts retain 

 their colors weeks after being stung, and this too in a moist 

 situation, under a burning sun." The quotation is from Pack- 

 ard, who makes no comment upon it. Is there anything analo- 

 gous to serve as a guide ? There is in regard to the hive-bee. 

 J. Yates, in Science Gossip for 1890, p. 122, states: " Bees store 

 up honey manufactured from nectar by a kind of digestion in 

 their honej^-sac or crop, and the honey is preserved from decom- 

 position or fermentation by the addition of a little formic acid 

 to each cell. The formic acid is obtained from the p©ison-sac 

 of the sting ; hence the sting, or rather one of the constituents 

 of the poison-sac, is not intended chiefly for defensive purposes, 

 but for the higher and more useful purpose of preserving their 

 food." 



As, upon analysis, formic acid has been found, the evidence 

 appears sufficient. Wasp-poison may differ somewhat in com- 

 position from that of bees ; probably it does so, as the food of 

 the two creatures is different and the needs of their respective 

 young ai'e also different. 



We return now to another question : Why is not preserved 

 food fit for the sustenance of the young wasps ? Some will nat- 

 urally present the objection that the food is poisoned. But it 

 is to be observed here that few blood-poisons are also stomach- 

 poisons ; and we know that honey does not poison the bee- 

 grub. Cowan (Honey-Bee, 1890) says, too, that the jDoison from 

 the sac mixed with the food is given as a remedy in foul-brood. 

 We know, too, that a person may suck a rattlesnake bite and 

 even swallow some of the venom without being poisoned thereby. 

 So long as the prey is prevented from decomposition it may be 

 fit for the young wasps. The state of these spiders can hardly 

 be compared to hybernation. A hj'bernating animal lives 

 through the winter upon its store of fat, and emerges in spring 

 a gaunt creature. But these spiders which went through, even 



