The Hunting Wasps 



the proximity of the others, which, stretching 

 their legs at random, might strike it and rip 

 it open with their spurs. This is perhaps the 

 reason why the Yellow-winged Sphex, who 

 heaps up three or four Crickets in the same 

 cell, practically annihilates all movement in 

 its victims, whereas the Languedocian Sphex, 

 victualling each burrow with a single piece of 

 game, leaves her Ephippigers the best part of 

 their power of motion and contents herself 

 with making it impossible for them to change 

 their position or stand upon their legs. She 

 may thus, though I cannot say so positively, 

 economize her dagger-thrusts. 



While the only half-paralysed Ephippiger 

 cannot imperil the larva, fixed on a part of 

 the body where resistance is impossible, the 

 case is different with the Sphex, who has to 

 cart her prize home. First, having still, to a 

 great extent, preserved the use of its tarsi, the 

 victim clutches with these at any blade of 

 grass encountered on the road along which it 

 is being dragged; and this produces an obsta- 

 cle to the hauling-process which is difficult to 

 overcome. The Sphex, already heavily bur- 

 dened by the weight of her load, is liable to 

 exhaust herself with her efforts to make the 

 Other insect relax its desperate grip in grassy 

 170 



