156 INSECT LIFE 



XI 



of the brain. The Sphex acts Hke a Flourens who, 

 baring an animal's brain and pressing on the cerebrum, 

 abolishes at once sensibility, will, intelligence, and 

 motion. The pressure ceases and all reappears. 

 So reappear the remains of life in the ephippiger 

 as the lethargic effects of a skilful pressure go 

 off. The ganglia of the skull, squeezed by the 

 mandibles, but without mortal contusions, gradually 

 recover activity, and put an end to the general 

 torpor. It is alarmingly scientific ! 



Fortune has her entomological caprices ; you run 

 after her and do not come up with her ; you forget her, 

 and lo, here she is tapping at your door ! How 

 many useless excursions, how many fruitless plans, 

 you made to try to see Sphex occitanica sacrifice 

 her victim ! Twenty years go by ; these pages are 

 already in the printer's hands, when, in the first days 

 of this month (August 8, 1878), my son Emile darts 

 into my study. " Quick ! quick ! " he cries, " a Sphex 

 is dragging along her prey under the plane trees, 

 before the door of the court ! " Emile, initiated into 

 the affair by what I had told him, and, better still, 

 by like facts seen in our out-of-door life, was quite 

 right. I hurried away, and saw a splendid S. 

 occitanica dragging a paralysed ephippiger by the 

 antennae. She moved toward the poultry yard, 

 seemingly desirous of scaling the wall, to make her 

 burrow under some roof tile. Some years before I 

 had seen a similar Sphex accomplish the ascent with 

 her game, and choose her domicile under the arch 

 of an ill-joined tile. Perhaps this new one was 

 descended from her whose difficult ascent I have 

 chronicled. A like feat is probably about to be 



