After the fatal stroke has been administered, the murderess remains for a long time belly to belly with the dead, for reasons which we shall shortly perceive. There may now be some danger for the Philanthus. The attitude of attack and defence is abandoned; and the ventral surface, more vulnerable than the other, is within reach of the sting. Now the deceased still retains the reflex use of her weapon for a few minutes, as I learnt to my cost. Having taken the Bee too early from the bandit and handling her without suspecting any risk, I received a most downright sting. Then how does the Philanthus, in her long contact with the butchered Bee, manage to protect herself against that lancet, which is bent upon avenging the murder? Is there any chance of a commutation of the death-penalty? Can an accident ever happen in the Bee's favour? Perhaps. One incident strengthens my faith in this perhaps. I had placed four Bees and as many Eristales under the bell-glass at the same time, with the object of estimating the Philanthus' entomological knowledge in the matter of the distinction of species. Reciprocal quarrels break out in the mixed colony. Suddenly, in the midst of the fray, the killer is killed. She tumbles over on her back, she waves her legs; she is dead. Who struck the blow? It was certainly not the excitable but pacific Drone-fly; it was one of the Bees, who struck home by accident during the thick of the fight. Where and how? I cannot tell. The incident occurs only once in my notes, but it throws a light upon the question. The Bee is capable of withstanding her adversary; she can then and there slay her would-be slayer with a thrust of the sting. That she does not defend herself to better purpose, when she falls into her enemy's clutches, is due to her ignorance of fencing and not to the weakness of her weapon. And here again arises, more insistently than before, the question which I asked above: how is it that the Philanthus has learnt for offensive what the Bee has not learnt for defensive purposes? I see but one answer to the difficulty: the one knows without having learnt; the other does not know because she is incapable of learning.