52 The Hunting Wasps 



prothorax, behind the first pair of feet. The 

 fluid which I employ is ammonia ; but obvi- 

 ously any other liquid as powerful in its action 

 would produce the same results. The nib 

 being charged with ammonia as it might be 

 with a very small drop of ink, I give the prick. 

 The effects obtained differ enormously, accord- 

 ing to whether we experiment upon species 

 whose thoracic ganglia are close together or 

 upon species in which those same ganglia are 

 far apart. In the first class, my experiments 

 were made on Dung-beetles : the Sacred Scarab ^ 

 and the Wide-necked Scarab ; on Buprestes : 

 the Bronze Buprestis ; lastly, on Weevils, in 

 particular on the Cleonus hunted by the heroine 

 of this essay. In the second class, I experi- 

 mented on Ground-beetles : Carabi, Procrustes, 

 Chlaenii, Sphodri, Nebriae ; on Longicornes : 

 Saperdse and Lamiae ; on Melasoma-beetles : 

 Cellar-beetles, Scauri, Asidae. 



In the Scarabaei, the Buprestes and the 

 Weevils the effect is instantaneous : all move- 

 ment ceases suddenly, without convulsions, so 

 soon as the fatal drop has touched the nerve- 

 centres. The Cerceris' own sting produces no 



* For the Sacred Scarab, or Sacred Beetle, of. Insect Life, by 

 J. H. Fabre, translated by the author of Mademoiselle Mori: 

 chaps, i. and ii. ; and The Life and Love of the Insect, by J. Henri 

 Fabre, translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos : chaps, i. to iv. 

 — Translator' s Note. 



