The Poison of the Bee 



into the mould. I can obtain no precise in- 

 formation from them. True, their thinly 

 scattered cilia and their breastplate of fat 

 form a palisade and a rampart against the 

 sting, which nearly always enters only a little 

 way and that obliquely. 



Let us leave these unmanageable ones and 

 keep to the Orthoptcron, which is more amen- 

 able to experiment. A dagger-thrust, we were 

 saying, kills it if directed upon the ganglia 

 of the thorax; it throws it into a transient 

 state of discomfort if directed upon another 

 point. It is, therefore, by its direct action 

 upon the nervous centres that the poison re- 

 veals its formidable properties. 



To generalize and say that death is always 

 near at hand when the sting is administered 

 in the thoracic ganglia would be going too 

 far: it occurs frequently, but there are a good 

 many exceptions, resulting from circumstances 

 impossible to define. I cannot control the di- 

 rection of the sting, the depth attained, the 

 quantity of poison shed; and the stump of the 

 Bee is very far from making up for my short- 

 comings. We have here not the cunning 



or Rosechafer-Rrubs. Cf. The Life and Love of the In- 

 sect: chap. xi. — Translator'] Note. 



351 



