The Three Dagger-thrusts 77 



turns is at the top or at the bottom. Success, 

 for a moment undecided, at last crowns the 

 aggressor's efforts. Despite his vigorous kicks, 

 despite the snaps of his pincer-hke mandibles, 

 the Cricket is laid low and stretched upon his 

 back. 



The murderess soon makes her arrangements. 

 She places herself belly to belly with her adver- 

 sary, but in the opposite direction, grasps one 

 of the threads at the tip of the Cricket's abdo- 

 men with her mandibles and masters with her 

 fore-legs the convulsive efforts of his thick 

 hinder thighs. At the same time, her middle- 

 legs hug the heaving sides of the beaten insect ; 

 and her hind-legs, pressing like two levers on 

 the front of the head, force the joint of the 

 neck to open wide. The Sphex then curves 

 her abdomen vertically, so as to offer only an 

 unattackable convex surface to the Cricket's 

 mandibles ; and we see, not without emotion, 

 its poisoned lancet drive once into the victim's 

 neck, next into the joint of the front two seg- 

 ments of the thorax, and lastly towards the 

 abdomen. In less time than it takes to relate, 

 the murder is consummated ; and the Sphex, 

 after adjusting the disorder of her toilet, makes 

 ready to haul home the victim, whose limbs are 

 still quivering in the throes of death. 



Let us consider for a moment the excellence 



