Let us pause a moment before a spectacle so calculated to arrest attention. The prey is laid on its back, motionless. In the cell of Sphex flavipennis it is a cricket, or three or four, piled up; in that of the Languedocian Sphex there is a single victim, but proportionately large, a plump-bodied ephippiger. The grub is a lost grub if torn from the spot whence it draws nourishment. Should it fall, all is over, for weak as it is, and without means of locomotion, how would it again find the spot where it should quench its thirst? The merest trifle would enable the victim to get rid of the animalcule gnawing at its entrails, yet the gigantic prey gives itself up without the least sign of protestation. I am well aware that it is paralysed, and has lost the use of its feet from the sting of its assassin, but at this early stage it preserves more or less power of movement and sensation in parts unaffected by the dart. The abdomen palpitates, the mandibles open and shut, the abdominal styles and the antennæ oscillate. What would happen if the grub fixed on one of the spots yet sensitive near the mandibles, or even on the stomach, which, being tenderer and more succulent, would naturally suggest itself as fittest for the first mouthfuls of the feeble grub? Bitten on the quick parts, cicada, cricket, and ephippiger would display at least some shuddering of the skin, which would detach and throw off the minute larva, for which probably all would be over, since it would risk falling into the formidable, pincer-like jaws. But there is a part of the body where no such peril is to be feared—the thorax wounded by the sting. There and there only can the experimenter on a recent victim dig down the point of a needle—nay, pierce through and through without evoking any sign of pain. And there the egg is invariably laid—there the young larva always attacks its prey. Gnawed where pain is no longer felt, the cricket does not stir. Later, when the wound has reached a sensitive spot, it will move of course as much as it can; but then it is too late—its torpor will be too deep, and besides, its enemy will have gained strength. That is why the egg is always laid on the same spot, near the wounds caused by the sting on the thorax, not in the middle, where the skin might be too thick for the new-born grub, but on one side—toward the junction of the feet, where the skin is much thinner. What a judicious choice! what reasoning on the part of the mother when, underground, in complete darkness, she perceives and utilises the one suitable spot for her egg!