Well, the victim of this clumsy operation has its legs paralysed only on the left side, the side towards which the weapon was deflected; it is a case of hemiplegia. The legs on the right side move. If the operation had been performed in the normal fashion the result would have been sudden inertia of all six legs. The hemiplegia, it is true does not last long. The torpor of the left half rapidly gains the right half of the body and the creature lies motionless, incapable of burying itself in the mould, without, however, realizing the conditions indispensable to the safety of the egg or the young grub. If I seize one of its legs or a point of the skin with the tweezers, it suddenly shrivels and curls up and swells out again, as it does when in complete possession of its energies. What would become of an egg laid on such victuals? At the first closing of this ruthless vice, at the first contraction, it would be crushed, or at least detached from its place; and any egg removed from the point where the mother has fastened it is bound to perish. It needs, on the Cetonia's abdomen, a yielding support which the bites of the new-born larva will not set aquiver. The slightly eccentric sting gives none of this soft mass of fat, always outstretched and quiescent. Only on the following day, after the torpor has made progress, does the larva become suitably inert and limp. But it is too late; and in the meantime the egg would be in serious danger on this half-paralysed victim. The sting, by straying less than a millimetre, would leave the Scolia without progeny. I promised fractions. Here they are. Let us consider the Tarantula and the Epeira on whom the Calicurgi have just operated. The first thrust of the sting is delivered in the mouth. In both victims the poison-fangs are absolutely lifeless: tickling with a bit of straw never once succeeds in making them open. On the other hand, the palpi, their very near neighbours, their adjuncts as it were, possess their customary mobility. Without any previous touches, they keep on moving for weeks. In entering the mouth the sting did not reach the cervical ganglia, or sudden death would have ensued and we should have before our eyes corpses which would go bad in a few days, instead of fresh carcases in which traces of life remain manifest for a long time. The cephalic nerve-centres have been spared.