The Poison of the Bee 



plex. Never mind about that, my masters: 

 if you want varied instincts in which to seek 

 the source of the complex by means of the 

 simple, it is not necessary to search the folia- 

 tions of the coal-seams and the successive lay- 

 ers of the rocks, those archives of the pre- 

 historic world; the present day affords to con- 

 templation an inexhaustible treasury realizing 

 perhaps everything that can emerge from the 

 limbo of possibility. In what will soon be 

 half a century of study, I have caught but a 

 tiny glimpse of a very tiny corner of the realm 

 of instinct; and the harvest gathered over- 

 whelms me with its variety : I do not yet know 

 two species of predatory Wasps whose me- 

 thods are exactly the same. 



One gives a single stroke of the dagger, a 

 second two, a third three, a fourth nine or ten. 

 One stabs here and the other there; and 

 neither is imitated by the next, who attacks 

 elsewhere. This one injures the cephalic cen- 

 tres and produces death ; that one respects 

 them and produces paralysis. Some squeeze 

 the cervical ganglia to obtain a temporary 

 torpor; others know nothing of the effects of 

 compressing the brain. A few make the prey 

 disgorge, lest its honey should poison the off- 



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