More Hunting Wasps 



the lancet. What is to be done in the face 

 of this danger which might disconcert the 

 most practised surgeon? The patient must 

 first be disarmed and then operated on. 



And in fact the Cahcurgus' sting, aimed 

 from back to front, is driven into the 

 Epeira's mouth, with minute precautions and 

 marked persistency. On the instant, the 

 poison-fangs close lifelessly and the formi- 

 dable quarry is powerless to harm. The 

 Wasp's abdomen then extends its arc and 

 drives the needle behind the fourth pair of 

 legs, on the median line, almost at the junc- 

 tion of the belly and the cephalothorax. At 

 this point the skin is finer and more easily 

 penetrable than elsewhere. The remainder 

 of the thoracic surface is covered with a 

 tough breast-plate which the sting would per- 

 haps fail to perforate. The nerve-centres, 

 the source of the leg-movements, are situ- 

 ated a little above the wounded point, but 

 the back-to-front direction of the sting makes 

 it possible to reach them. This last wound 

 results in the paralysis of all the eight legs 

 at once. 



To enlarge upon it further would detract 



from the eloquence of this performance. 



First of all, to safeguard the operator, a stab 



in the mouth, that point so terribly armed, 



336 



