A Scientific Slaughterer 



their kidnappers, who can thus pick and 

 choose the victims that suit them ; they are far 

 more vulnerable than any of the others at 

 the one point where the Wasp's dart can pene- 

 trate, for at this point the motor centres of 

 the feet and wings are crowded together, all 

 easily accessible to the sting. At this point, 

 in the Weevils, the three thoracic ganglia are 

 very close together, the last two even touch- 

 ing; at the same point, in the Buprestes, the 

 second and third are mingled in one large 

 mass, very near the first. And it is just 

 Buprestes and Weevils that we see hunted, to 

 the absolute exclusion of all other game, by 

 the eight species of Cerceres whose pro- 

 visions have been found to consist of Beetles ! 

 A certain inward resemblance, that is to say, 

 the centralization of the nervous system, must 

 therefore be the reason why the lairs of the 

 different Cerceres are crammed with victims 

 bearing no outward resemblance whatever. 

 The most exalted knowledge could make 

 no more judicious choice than this, by which 

 so great a collection of difficulties is mag- 

 nificently solved that we wonder if we be 

 not the dupes of some involuntary illusion, 

 whether preconceived theoretic notions have 

 not obscured the actual facts, whether, in 

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