The Hunting Wasps 



harm? Will the horrid Grey Worm, lash- 

 ing the walls of the cell with its powerful 

 tail, not endanger either the egg or the little 

 grub? We dare not picture the encounter, 

 in the narrow cell of the burrow, between 

 those two, the feeble, new-hatched creature 

 and that dragony thing still possessing free- 

 dom in its movements to twist and untwist 

 its tortuous coils. 



My suspicions were confirmed by an ex- 

 amination of the caterpillar from the point 

 of view of sensibility. Whereas the small 

 game of the Silky Ammophila and the Sil- 

 very Ammophila struggle violently if the 

 needle touches them elsewhere than in the 

 ring stung by the Wasp, the big caterpillars 

 of the Sandy Ammophila and especially of 

 the Hairy Ammophila remain motionless, no 

 matter which segment we prick. With 

 them there are no contortions, no sudden 

 twists of the hinder parts; the steel point 

 produces no sign of a remnant of sensibility 

 beyond a faint quivering of the skin. The 

 power of moving and feeling is therefore 

 almost wholly abolished, as it needs must be 

 if the grub is to feed in safety on this mon- 

 strous prey. Before placing it in the bur- 

 268 



