The Ignorance of Instinct 177 



back on the toothed upper arm ; and the 

 insect is caught between the blades of the 

 double saw. It is as though the jaws of a 

 Wolf-trap were closing on the animal that had 

 nibbled at its bait. Thereupon, without un- 

 loosing the cruel machine, the Mantis gnaws 

 her victim by small mouthfuls. Such are the 

 ecstasies, the prayers, the mystic meditations 

 of the Fvego Dieou. 



Of the scenes of carnage which the Praying 

 Mantis has left in my memory, let me relate 

 one. The thing happens in front of. a work- 

 yard of Bee-eating Philanthi. These diggers 

 feed their larvae on Hive-bees, whom they catch 

 on the flowers while gathering pollen and honey. 

 If the Philanthus who has made a capture feels 

 that her Bee is swollen with honey, she never 

 fails, before storing her, to squeeze her crop, 

 either on the way or at the entrance of the 

 dwelling, so as to make her disgorge the delicious 

 syrup, which she drinks by licking the tongue 

 which her unfortunate victim, in her death- 

 agony, sticks out of her mouth at full length. 

 This profanation of a dying creature, whose 

 enemy squeezes its belly to empty it and feast 

 on the contents, has something so hideous 

 about it that I should denounce the Philanthus 

 as a brutal murderess, if animals were capable 

 of wrongdoing. At the moment of some such 



M 



