The Three Dagger-thrusts 79 



movement capable of diverting the sting from 

 the points at which the poison is to be in- 

 jected ; and it is probably with the object of 

 stilling the movements of the abdomen that 

 one of its terminal threads is grasped. No, if 

 a fertile imagination had allowed itself free 

 scope to invent a plan of attack at will, it could 

 not have contrived anything better ; and it is 

 open to doubt whether the athletes of the 

 classic palestrcB, when grappling with an adver- 

 sary, boasted more scientific attitudes. 



I have said that the sting is driven several 

 times into the patient's body : first under the 

 neck, then behind the prothorax, next and 

 lastly towards the top of the abdomen. It is 

 in these three dagger-thrusts that the infalli- 

 bility and the intuitive science of instinct 

 appear in all their splendour. Let us first re- 

 call the principal conclusions to which our 

 earlier study of the Cerceris has led us. The 

 victims of the Wasps whose larvse live on prey 

 are not proper corpses, in spite of their im- 

 mobility, which is sometimes complete. They 

 suffer simply from a total or partial locomotory 

 paralysis, from a more or less thorough anni- 

 hilation of animal life ; but vegetable life, the 

 life of the organs of nutrition, is maintained for 

 a long while yet and preserves from decomposi- 

 tion the prey which the larva is not to devour 



