The Wisdom of Instinct 



places. But this is the least serious draw- 

 back. The Ephippiger preserves the com- 

 plete use of her mandibles, which snap and 

 bite with their customary vigour. Now what 

 these terrible nippers have in front of them is 

 just the slender body of the enemy, at a time 

 when she is in her hauling-attitude. The an- 

 tennse, in fact, are grasped not far from their 

 roots, so that the mouth of the victim dragged 

 along on its back faces either the thorax or 

 the abdomen of the Sphex, who, standing 

 high on her long legs, takes good care, I am 

 convinced, not to be caught in the mandibles 

 yawning underneath her. At all events, a 

 moment of forgetfulness, a slip, the merest 

 trifle can bring her within the reach of two 

 powerful nippers, which would not neglect the 

 opportunity of taking a pitiless vengeance. 

 In the more difficult cases at any rate, if not 

 always, the action of those formidable pincers 

 must be done away with; and the fish-hooks 

 of the legs must be rendered incapable of in- 

 creasing their resistance to the process of 

 transport. 



How will the Sphex go to work to obtain 

 this result? Here man, even the man of sci- 

 ence, would hesitate, would waste his time in 

 barren efforts and would perhaps abandon all 



