THE MUD-DAUBERS. 191 



of Bembex. So rapid is the abduction that it may be presumed 

 that the mandibles and sting are only used while the wasp is 

 on the wing. This impetuous method, incompatible with 

 learned surgery, explains to us, he thinks, even better than the 

 narrowness of her cells, the predilection of Pelopaeus for small 

 spiders. A larger and more powerful victim might put the 

 wasp in danger. The faultiness of her art makes a weak victim 

 necessary to her. We must suspect that a spider so hastily and 

 carelessly taken, may be killed. 



As a matter of fact careful and repeated scrutiny of the con- 

 tents of these cells, when the egg was not yet hatched, con- 

 firms these suspicions. There is never any trembling either 

 of palpi or tarsi, ind in about ten days they decompose. This 

 then is what is stored in the cells of Pelopaeus, spiders dead or 

 nearly dead. Is the learned art of paralyzing practiced by 

 Calicurgus upon the tarantula, which keeps it fresh for seven 

 weeks, unknown here? Have we here to deal, not with a deli- 

 cate operator who knows how to abolish movement without de- 

 stroying life, but with a brutal worker who kills for the sake of 

 rendering the victim immovable? Both the withered aspect 

 and the rapid deterioration of the victims bear witness that this 

 is the truth. 



This, M. Fabre goes on to say, should not surprise us; later 

 we shall see wasps giving instant death by one stroke of the 

 sting with a science not less astonishing than that of the paral- 

 yzers. We shall see the motives which demand this and we 

 shall recognize under all its aspects, the profound anatomical 

 and physiological knowledge which a rational act would require 

 to rival the unconscious act of instinct. He then adds that he 

 cannot even suspect the cause which makes it necessary for 

 Pelopaeus to kill her victims but that he can easily understand 

 her logical method in turning to account these spiders, menaced 

 with early decomposition. In the first place the prey is mul- 

 tiplied in each cell. The piece actually attacked by the larva 

 is soon a disorganized mass, likely to decay speedily, but it is 

 small and is consumed before decomposition can advance, for 



