The desire for knowledge in natural history has its cruel side. To learn precisely the point attacked by the sting and to make myself thoroughly acquainted with the horrible talent of the murderess, I have investigated more assassinations under glass than I would dare to confess. Without a single exception, I have always seen the Bee stung in the throat. In the preparations for the final blow, the tip of the abdomen may well come to rest on this or that point of the thorax or abdomen; but it does not stop at any of these, nor is the sting unsheathed, as can readily be ascertained. Indeed, once the contest is opened, the Philanthus becomes so entirely absorbed in her operation that I can remove the cover and follow every vicissitude of the tragedy with my pocket-lens. After recognizing the invariable position of the wound, I bend back and open the articulation of the head. I see under the Bee's chin a white spot, measuring hardly a twenty-fifth of an inch square, where the horny integuments are lacking and the delicate skin is shown uncovered. It is here, always here, in this tiny defect in the armour, that the sting enters. Why is this spot stabbed rather than another? Can it be the only vulnerable point, which would necessarily determine the thrust of the lancet? Should any one entertain so petty a thought, I advise him to open the articulation of the corselet, behind the first pair of legs. He will there see what I see: the bare skin, quite as fine as under the neck, but covering a much larger surface. The horny breast-plate offers no wider breach. If the Philanthus were guided in her operation solely by the question of vulnerability, it is here certainly that she ought to strike, instead of persistently seeking the narrow slit in the neck. The weapon would not need to hesitate and grope; it would obtain admission into the tissues off-hand. No, the stroke of the lancet is not forced upon it mechanically: the assassin scorns the large defect in the corselet and prefers the place under the chin, for eminently logical reasons which we will now attempt to unravel. Immediately after the operation I take the Bee from the Philanthus. What strikes me is the sudden inertia of the antennae and the mouth-parts, organs which in the victims of most of the Hunting Wasps continue to move for so long a time. There are here not any of the signs of life to which I have been accustomed in my old studies of insect paralysis: the antennary threads waving slowly to and fro, the palpi quivering, the mandibles opening and closing for days, weeks and months on end. At most, the tarsi tremble for a minute or two; that constitutes the whole death-struggle. Complete immobility ensues. The inference drawn from this sudden inertia is inevitable: the Wasp has stabbed the cervical ganglia. Hence the immediate cessation of movement in all the organs of the head; hence the real instead of the apparent death of the Bee. The Philanthus is a butcher and not a paralyser.