8o The Hunting IVasps 



for some time to come. To produce this 

 paralysis the Hunting Wasps employ precisely 

 the process which the advanced science of our 

 own day might suggest to the experimental 

 physiologists, that is to say, they injure, by 

 means of their poisoned sting, the nerve-centres 

 that control the locomotory organs. We know 

 besides that the several centres or ganglia of 

 the nervous system of articulate animals are, 

 within certain limits, independent of one another 

 in their action, so that an injury to any one of 

 them does not, or at any rate not immediately, 

 entail more than the paralysis of the corre- 

 sponding segment ; and this applies all the more 

 when the different ganglia are farther apart. 

 When, on the other hand, they are welded to- 

 gether, the lesion of this common centre induces 

 paralysis of all the segments over which its 

 ramifications are distributed. This is the case 

 with the Buprestes and the Weevils, whom the 

 Cerceres paralyse with a single thrust of the 

 sting, aimed at the common mass of the nerve- 

 centres of the thorax. But open a Cricket. 

 What do we find to set the three pairs of legs 

 in motion ? We find what the Sphex knew long 

 before the anatomists : three nerve-centres at 

 a great distance one from the other. Hence 

 the magnificent logic of her needle-thrusts thrice 

 repeated. Proud science, bend the knee ! 



