I 



The Mason-Wasps 



tions. The lack of artifice calls for a 

 feeble victim. It also makes us suspect 

 that the Spider so hastily set upon is killed. 



Indeed, I have over and over again 

 armed my eyes with a magnifying-glass and 

 scrutinized the contents of cells whose eggs 

 had not yet hatched, a proof that the pro- 

 visions were of recent date: there is never 

 a quiver of either palpi or tarsi in the 

 victims stored away. It is only with diffi- 

 culty that I manage to preserve them : in 

 ten days' time, more or less, I see them 

 grow mouldy and putrefy. The Spiders, 

 therefore, are dead, or very nearly so, 

 when they are potted by the Pelopaeus. Is 

 the skilful paralysis which the Calicurgus 

 practises upon the Tarantula, who keeps 

 fresh for seven weeks, unknown to the 

 Pelopaeus, or is it impracticable in the fierce- 

 ness of the attack? Are we, in her case, 

 dealing not with a delicate practitioner, who 

 is able to abolish movement without de- 

 stroying life, but rather with a brutal 

 sacrificer, who, to deprive her victims of 

 their power of movement, kills them? 

 Everything in their withered aspect and 

 their rapid decay assures us that this is so. 



The evidence does not surprise me : we 

 shall see, as we go on, other victimarii in- 

 96 



