The Wisdom of Instinct 



should fail to give a true impression of the 

 sublime talent of this masterly operator, I 

 here copy out my note as I pencilled it on the 

 spot, immediately after the stirring specta- 

 cle. 



The Sphex finds that her victim is offering 

 too much resistance, hooking itself here and 

 there to blades of grass. She then stops to 

 perform upon it the following curious opera- 

 tion, a sort of coup de grace. The Wasp, 

 still astride her prey, forces open the articula- 

 tion of the neck, high up, at the nape. Then 

 she seizes the neck with her mandibles and, 

 without making any external wound, probes 

 as far forward as possible under the skull, so 

 as to seize and chew up the ganglia of the 

 head. When this operation is done, the vic- 

 tim is utterly motionless, incapable of the 

 least resistance, whereas previously the legs, 

 though deprived of the power of connected 

 movement needed for walking, vigorously op- 

 posed the process of traction. 



There is the fact in all its eloquence. 

 With the points of its mandibles, the insect, 

 while leaving uninjured the thin and supple 

 membrane of the neck, goes rummaging into 

 the skull and munching the brain. There is 

 no effusion of blood, no wound, but simply an 

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