1 82 The Hmtting JVasps 



not able to take it by the homs ! Perhaps my 

 prolonged presence and the unusual events that 

 have just occurred have disturbed her faculties. 

 Then let us leave the Sphex to herself, between 

 her Ephippiger and her burrow ; let us give her 

 time to collect herself and, in the calm of 

 solitude, to think out some way of managing 

 her business. I leave her therefore and continue 

 my walk ; and, two hours later, I return to the 

 same place. The Sphex is gone, the burrow is 

 still open, and the Ephippiger is lying just where 

 I placed her. Conclusion : the Wasp has tried 

 nothing ; she went away, abandoning every- 

 thing, her home and her game, when, to utilize 

 them both, all that she had to do was to take 

 her prey by one leg. And so this rival of 

 Flourens, who but now was startling us with 

 her cleverness as she dexterously squeezed her 

 victim's brain to produce lethargy, becomes 

 incredibly helpless in the simplest case outside 

 her usual habits. She, who so well knows how 

 to attack a victim's thoracic ganglia with her 

 sting and its cervical ganglia with her mandibles ; 

 she, who makes such a judicious difference 

 between a poisoned prick annihilating the 

 vital influence of the nerves for ever and a 

 pressure causing only momentary torpor, cannot 

 grip her prey by this part when it is made im- 

 possible for her to grip it by any other. To 



