Bramble-bees and Others 



between my victims and those of the preda- 

 tory insects is so great that no Sphex and no 

 Tachytes would have disowned the product 

 of my devices. My Cricket, my Ephippiger, 

 my Mantis had the same freshness as theirs; 

 they preserved it as theirs did for a period 

 amply sufficient to allow of the grubs' com- 

 plete evolution. They proved to me, in the 

 most conclusive manner, they prove to all 

 whom it may interest that the poison of the 

 Bees, leaving its hideous violence on one side, 

 does not differ in its effects from the poison 

 of the predatory Wasps. Are they alkaline 

 or acid? The question is an idle one in this 

 connection. Both of them intoxicate, de- 

 range, torpify the nervous centres and thus 

 produce either death or paralysis, according 

 to the method of inoculation. For the mo- 

 ment, that is all. No one is yet able to say 

 the last word on the actions of those poisons, 

 so terrible in infinitesimal doses. But on the 

 point under discussion we need no longer be 

 ignorant: the Wasp owes the preservation of 

 her grub's provisions not to any special quali- 

 ties of her poison, but to the extreme precision 

 of her surgery. 



A last and more plausible objection is that 



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