214 BOMBAY DUCKS 
clasped it in order to carry it away. But she promptly 
perceived that this prey was active, and then the drama 
began, and ended with inconceivable rapidity. The 
Cerceris faced her victim, seized its proboscis with her 
powerful jaws, and grasped it vigorously, and while the 
weevil reared itself up, pressed her forefeet hard on its 
back as if to force open some ventral articulation. Then 
the tail of the murderess slid under the C/eonus, curved 
and darted its poisoned lancet swiftly two or three 
times between the first and second pair of feet. In a 
twinkling all was over. Without one convulsive move- 
ment, with no motion of the limbs, such as accompany 
the death of an animal, the victim fell motionless for 
ever, as if annihilated, 
“Tt was at once wonderful and terrible in its rapidity. 
Then the assassin turned the weevil on its back, placed 
herself body to body with it, her legs on either side of 
it, and flew off. Three times I renewed this experiment 
.. . the same scene always occurred.” 
In like manner does the wasp Rhynchium, of which 
we are speaking, paralyse her victim, with, however, 
one difference. There is in the weevil but one motor 
centre, so that the wasp has only to stab it in one place 
in order to completely paralyse it; a caterpillar, how- 
ever, is a composite creature, having several motor 
centres; hence it has to be stabbed in three places 
before it is rendered quiescent—in the neck, in the hind 
part of the thorax, and in the abdomen. The first 
stroke gives the front part of the body its quietus, the 
second paralyses the front pro-legs, and the last stills 
for ever the movements of the hind pro-legs. The 
