POISON-FANG AND STILETTO 169 



succeeds in doing; then, having gained the 

 advantage in the fight, she at once proceeds to 

 put an end to the struggles of her victim by 

 stinging it into helplessness. M. Fabre, who 

 several times watched a Sphex attack a cricket, 

 describes her mode of procedure in the follow- 

 ing graphic manner: "The murderess soon 

 makes her arrangements. She places herself 

 body to body with her adversary, but in a re- 

 verse position, seizes one of the bands at the 

 end of the cricket's abdomen, and masters with 

 her fore-feet the convulsive efforts of its great 

 hind thighs. At the same moment her inter- 

 mediate feet squeeze the panting sides of the 

 vanquished cricket, and her hind ones press 

 like two levers on its face, causing the articu- 

 lation of the neck to gape open. The Sphex 

 then curves her abdomen vertically, so as to 

 offer a convex surface impossible for the 

 mandibles of the cricket to seize, and one 

 beholds, not without emotion, the poisoned 

 lancet plunge once into the victim's neck, next 

 into the jointing of the two front segments of 

 the thorax, and then again towards the abdomen. 

 In less time than it takes to tell, the murder is 

 committed, and the Sphex, after setting her dis- 

 ordered toilette to rights, prepares to carry off 

 her victim, its limbs still quivering in the death 

 throes." Grasping the cricket firmly with her 

 jaws, and holding it close against her own body 

 with her legs, the Sphex rises with her heavy 

 burden into the air and conveys it to her burrow 

 by a series of short flights. When within a 

 short distance of her goal she alights, and 



