48 The Hunting Wasps 



ing, while others have the last two completely 

 united, soldered, welded together. It is also a 

 recognized fact that, in proportion as the 

 different nervous nuclei tend towards a closer 

 combination and greater centralization, the 

 characteristic functions of animal nature be- 

 come more perfect and consequently, alas, 

 more vulnerable. Here we have the prey which 

 the Cerceris really needs. Those Beetles with 

 motor centres brought close together or even 

 gathered into a common mass, making them 

 mutually dependent on one another, will be at 

 the same instant paralysed with a single stroke 

 of the dagger ; or, if several strokes be needed, 

 the ganglia to be stung will at any rate all be 

 there, collected under the point of the dart. 



Which Beetles are they, then, that constitute 

 a prey so eminently convenient for paralysing ? 

 That is the question. The lofty science of a 

 Claude Bernard, concerning itself only with the 

 fundamental generalities of organism and life, 

 would not suffice here ; it could never tell us 

 how to make this entomological selection. I 

 appeal to any physiologist under whose eyes 

 these lines may come. Without referring to 

 his library, could he name the Beetles in whom 

 that centralization of the nervous system 

 occurs ; and, even with the aid of his books, 

 would he at once know where to find the desired 



