30 The Hunting Wasps 



by the Weevils normally and at intervals 

 during the first week of this deep slumber, 

 which will be followed by no awakening and 

 which nevertheless is not yet death. It does 

 not cease until the intestines are emptied of 

 their contents, as shown by autopsy. Nor do 

 the faint glimmers of life which the insect still 

 manifests stop at that ; and, though irritability 

 of the organs seems annihilated for good, I 

 have nevertheless succeeded in arousing slight 

 signs of it. Having placed some recently ex- 

 humed and absolutely motionless Weevils in a 

 bottle containing sawdust moistened with a few 

 drops of benzine, I was not a little astonished 

 to see their legs and antennae moving a quarter 

 of an hour later. For a moment I thought 

 that I could recall them to life. Vain hope ! 

 Those movements, the last traces of a sus- 

 ceptibility about to be extinguished, soon cease 

 and cannot be excited a second time. I have 

 tried this experiment in some cases a few hours 

 after the murderous blow, in others as late as 

 three or four days after, and always with the 

 same success. Still, the movement is feeble in 

 proportion to the time that has elapsed since 

 the fatal stroke. It always spreads from front 

 to back : the antennae first wave slowly to and 

 fro ; then the front tarsi tremble and take 

 part in the oscillation ; next the tarsi of the 



