However, for all its starts, its convulsions, its irregular movements, the victim is none the less unable to harm the larvæ destined to devour it. I have taken from the Sphex’s burrow ephippigers struggling just as much as in the first moments of their semi-paralysis, and yet the feeble grub, born but a few hours earlier, was biting the gigantic victim with entire immunity. This striking result is caused by the mother laying her egg in one particular spot. I have already told how S. flavipennis glues her egg on the cricket’s breast, rather on one side, between the first and second pairs of feet. S. albisecta chooses the same place, and S. occitanica an analogous one, rather further back toward the base of one of the large hind thighs, all three thus evincing admirable knowledge as to where the egg will be safe. For consider the ephippiger shut in the burrow. It is on its back, absolutely incapable of turning over. Vainly does it struggle; the irregular movements of its feet are useless, the cell being too wide for them to gain support from the walls. What do the victim’s convulsions matter to the larva? It is on a spot where it cannot be reached by tarsi, mandibles, ovipositor, or antennæ—a point absolutely motionless, where there is not even a shudder of the skin. There is entire security unless the ephippiger can move, turn, and get on its feet, and that one condition is admirably guarded against. But with several, all in the same degree of paralysis, there would be great risk for the larva. Though there would be nothing to fear from the first insect attacked, as the larva is out of its reach, there would be peril from the neighbourhood of the others, which in stretching out their legs hither and thither might strike it and tear it up with their spurs. Perhaps this is why S. flavipennis, which heaps three or four grasshoppers in one cell, almost entirely paralyses them, while S. occitanica, providing each burrow with a single victim, leaves great power of motion to the ephippiger, simply preventing change of place or rising to its feet, thus—though I cannot affirm it—economising dagger thrusts.