54 THE SOLITARY WASPS. 



Full of excitement we hurried about and caught another spi- 

 der, a female of the same genus but of a different species. 

 Would she take it? Not at all. She had her preferences and 

 was too good a systematist, as Fabre would say, to be confounded 

 by such a procedure. Again we rushed off and hunted over the 

 field until we caught sight of a male of the species that she had 

 just taken. These little spiders run like lightning and are very 

 difficult to catch, but after a long chase he was captured and we 

 were ready for our second experiment. Thirty minutes had 

 passed since we left the wasp and we feared that her zeal for 

 game might have abated but as we put the spider in at one end 

 of the glass she recognized it from the other, pounced upon it, 

 and laying hold as she had before, delivered her sting to one side 

 of the middle of the ventral face of the thorax. We were hold- 

 ing the glass so that the combatants w^ere in full view and the 

 whole affair was watched from step to step. This was the third 

 time that we had seen the sting given but we wanted further 

 evidence. We shook the two apart, and for the fourth time saw 

 this enemy of the arachnids do her deadly work. 



Thus we learned the method of 8alht in capturing her prey, 

 but we were still in doubt as to the effect of the operation just 

 performed under our eyes. Was it a dead body that she was 

 dragging about the glass or had her cunning reduced the poor 

 little spider to an inert mass of living matter, paralyzed, not 

 killed? Both of the limp Lycosids were submitted to a care- 

 ful examination. We tested their legs and stimulated their 

 falces but there were no responsive twitchings and after patient 

 study we concluded that both were dead. At evening we ex- 

 amined them again with the same result. On the next day and 

 the day following we looked for signs of life but failed to find 

 them. The thrust of the w r asp was fatal it is not a mere hurt 

 that she inflicts but a death-blow. What shall we say of her? 

 that she is a mere butcher, and not the skilled operator that 

 we expected her to be? For our part we make no accusations 

 nor do we propose to intrude our notions into her affairs. Her 

 ways are doubtless the fittest for her purpose and to call the killer 



