THE LIFE OF A SOLITARY WASP 213 
nest. She carries it lengthwise, grasping it with all 
her six legs. Having placed it in the cell, she flies out 
of the window and soon returns with another cater- 
pillar of the same kind. When this is safely deposited 
in the nest she goes off for a third. Let: us now 
take out and examine one of these caterpillars. It is 
apparently alive and unwounded, but, if alive, it is 
certainly completely paralysed, since it never makes 
the slightest motion. It is therefore evident that the 
wasp has done something to it. Has she killed it or 
merely paralysed it? 
Leon Dufour, who first studied the ways of the 
hymenopteron Cerceris, which stores the nest with 
weevils, was of opinion that the wasp killed her prey 
and injected into it some antiseptic liquid to keep it 
fresh during the weeks or days her eggs took to hatch. 
The great French entomologist Fabre, whose work, 
“Insect Life” (of which there is an English edition), 
every one should read, discovered that the antiseptic 
theory is incorrect and that the wasp only paralyses its 
prey. He proved conclusively that the wasp merely 
pricks the motor nerve centres of her victim and thus 
completely paralyses it. He actually saw a Cerceris 
wasp perform the operation. As she was returning 
with a paralysed weevil, Fabre snatched it away from 
her with pinchers, instantly throwing a living weevil 
in exchange. “The manceuvre,” writes Fabre, “suc- 
ceeded perfectly. As soon as the Cercercis felt the 
prey slip under her body and escape her, she stamped 
with impatience, turned round, and, perceiving the 
weevil which had replaced hers, flung itself upon it and 
