No matter: considering the nature of the game, endowed with good wings for flying, the capture must take place with a suddenness that makes it hardly possible, I should say, to obtain paralysis unaccompanied by death. A Cerceris face to face with her clumsy Weevil, a Sphex grappling with the fat Cricket or the portly Ephippiger, an Ammophila holding her caterpillar by the skin of its neck, all three have an advantage over a prey which is too slow in its movements to avoid attack. They can take their time, select at their ease the mathematical spot where the sting is to penetrate, and lastly go to work with the precision of an anatomist probing with his scalpel the patient who lies before him on the operating-table. But with the Bembex it is a very different matter: at the least alarm, the game nimbly makes off; and, once on the wing, it can defy its pursuer. The Wasp has to pounce upon her prey unawares, without considering how she shall attack or calculating her blows, just as the Goshawk does when hunting in the fallows. Mandibles, claws, sting, every weapon must be employed simultaneously in the fierce fray so as to put an end as early as possible to a contest in which the least hesitation would give the victim time to escape. If these conjectures are borne out by the facts, the Bembex’ prize can be nothing but a corpse or at most a mortally wounded prey. Well, my conjectures are correct: the Bembex delivers her attack with a dash which would do credit to a bird of prey. To surprise the Wasp hunting is not an easy thing; were we never so well armed with patience, we should watch in vain in the neighbourhood of the burrow: the favourable opportunity would not present itself, for the insect flies far away and there is no possibility of following it in its rapid evolutions. Its tactics would doubtless be unknown to me but for the assistance of a utensil from which I would certainly never have expected such a service. I am speaking of my umbrella, which I used as a protection against the sun in the sand of the Bois des Issarts. I was not the only one to profit by its shade; I was generally surrounded by numerous companions. Gad-flies of various species would take refuge under the silken dome and sit peacefully on every part of the tightly-stretched cover. I was rarely without their society when the heat became overpowering. To while away the hours when I had nothing to do, it amused me to watch their great gold eyes, which shone like carbuncles under my canopy; I loved to follow their solemn progress when some part of the ceiling became too hot and obliged them to move a little way on.