The Hunting Wasps 



merely by chance: all this makes it hardly 

 possible to carry out premeditated experi- 

 ments with them, any more than with the 

 Languedocian Sphex. You have to be on 

 the look-out a long time for an opportunity, 

 to wait for it with untiring patience and to 

 know how to profit by it at the very moment 

 when at last it presents itself, a moment when 

 you were not thinking of it. I watched for 

 that opportunity for years and years; then 

 one day it suddenly appeared before my eyes, 

 offering a facility of examination and a clear- 

 ness of detail that compensated me for my 

 long waiting. 



At the beginning of my investigations, I 

 was twice enabled to witness the murder of 

 the caterpillar and I saw, as far as the swift- 

 ness of the operation permitted, the Wasp's 

 sting applied once and for all to either the 

 fifth or the sixth segment of the victim. 

 To confirm this result, I thought of ascer- 

 taining which ring had been stabbed on 

 caterpillars which I had not seen sacrificed, 

 but which I had taken from their captors 

 while they were being dragged to the bur- 

 row. It was no use employing a magnify- 

 ing-glass, for no magnify ing-glass enables 

 one to discover the least trace of a wound 

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