The Hunting Wasps 



If the prick, on the other hand, be too slight, 

 the insect, after a longer or shorter period 

 of deep torpor, comes to itself and at least 

 partially recovers its power of motion. The 

 assailant herself may sometimes operate 

 clumsily, just like man, for I have noticed 

 this sort of resurrection in a victim stung by 

 the dart of a Digger-wasp. The Yellow- 

 winged Sphex, whose story will shortly oc- 

 cupy our attention, stacks her lairs with 

 young Crickets first pricked with her poi- 

 soned lancet. I have extracted from one of 

 those lairs three poor Crickets whose ex- 

 treme limpness would, in any other circum- 

 stances, have denoted death. But here 

 again death was only apparent. Placed in 

 a flask, these Crickets kept in very good con- 

 dition, perfectly motionless all the time, for 

 nearly three weeks. In the end, two went 

 mouldy and the third partly revived, that 

 is to say, he recovered the power of motion 

 in his antennae, in his mouth-parts and, what 

 is more remarkable, in his first two pairs of 

 legs. If the Wasp's skill sometimes fails to 

 benumb the victim permanently, one can 

 hardly expect invariable success from man's 

 rough experiments. 



In the Beetles of the second class, that is 

 58 



