38 The Hunting Wasps 



placed herself belly to belly with it, with her 

 legs on either side, clasped it and flew away. 

 Thrice over I renewed the experiment, with my 

 three Weevils ; and the process never varied. 



Of course I gave the Cerceris back her first 

 prey each time and withdrew my own Cleonus 

 to examine him at my leisure. The inspection 

 but confirmed my high opinion of the assassin's 

 formidable skill. It was impossible to perceive 

 the least sign of a wound, the slightest flow of 

 vital fluid at the point attacked. But what 

 was most striking — and justly so — was the 

 prompt and complete annihilation of all move- 

 ment. Immediately after the murder I sought 

 in vain for traces of irritability of the organs 

 in the three Weevils dispatched before my 

 eyes : those traces were never revealed, whether 

 I pinched or pricked the insect ; and it required 

 the artificial means described above to provoke 

 them. Thus these powerful Cleoni, which, if 

 pierced alive with a pin and fixed on the insect- 

 collector's fatal sheet of cork, would have 

 kicked and struggled for days and weeks, nay, 

 for whole months on end, instantly lose all 

 power of movement from the effect of a tiny 

 prick which inoculates them with an invisible 

 drop of venom. But chemistry has no poison 

 so potent in so minute a dose ; prussic acid 

 would hardly produce those effects, if indeed it 



