i;o OUR INSECT FRIENDS AND FOES 



completes the last part of her journey on foot, 

 dragging the cricket over the ground by one of 

 its long antennae, which she holds between her 

 jaws. 



M. Fabre several times witnessed the manner 

 in which the cricket was overcome by the 

 Sphex by providing himself with a supply of 

 live crickets, and substituting them for the 

 paralyzed insects that the Sphex had dragged 

 to her burrow. The substitution of the active 

 for the paralyzed insect was easily accomplished, 

 as the Sphex has a curious habit of leaving her 

 prey on the threshold of her burrow, while she 

 goes down alone on a visit of inspection before 

 finally pulling it down to the chamber she has 

 prepared for its reception. 



In every case, M. Fabre asserts, the Sphex 

 stabbed the cricket three times, and always ex- 

 actly in the same places. Once in the neck, once 

 behind the prothorax, and once near the top of 

 the abdomen. Now, the cricket possesses three 

 nerve centres, each centre animating a pair of 

 the insect's feet, and it is these three separate 

 nerve centres that the Sphex pierces with her 

 sting, and paralyzes by the injection of the 

 poisonous fluid! 



That an insect should know exactly in what 

 parts of her victim the three nerve centres are 

 situated, and use this knowledge in such a 

 scientific manner to secure suitable food for 

 her young, appears almost incredible, and 

 seems to endow the Hymenoptlra with an 

 intelligence equal to that of human beings ; 

 yet the same insect will in other ways display 



