The malaxation of the cervical ganglia is optional: it has no bearing on the future of the larva; the Wasp practises it, when needful, to facilitate transport. I have seen the Languedocian Sphex, who gave me so much trouble in the old days, at work fairly often, but only once has she performed this operation on the neck of her Ephippiger in my presence. The invariable and absolutely necessary part of the Hairy Ammophila’s procedure seems therefore to be the multiplicity of stings and their distribution one by one over all or nearly all the nerve-centres along the median line of the lower surface. Let us place side by side with the murderous art of the Wasp the murderous art of man, practical man, whose business it is to slay rapidly. I will here recall one of my childhood’s memories. We were schoolboys of twelve years old, or thereabouts. We were being instructed in the woes of Melibœus, pouring out his sorrows on the bosom of Tityrus, who offers him his chestnuts, his sour milk and his bed of fresh bracken; [52] we were made to recite a poem by Racine the Younger, [53] La Religion. A curious poem, forsooth, for children who cared more for marbles than theology! I remember just two lines and a half: ... et, jusque dans la fange, L’insecte nous appelle et, certain de son prix, Ose nous demander raison de nos mépris. [54] Why do these two lines and a half linger in my memory and none of all the rest? Because already Scarabæus and I were friends. Those two lines and a half bothered me: I thought it a very absurd idea to relegate you to the mire, ye insects so seemly clad, so elegantly groomed. I knew the bronze harness of the Carabus, the Russia-leather jerkin of the Stag-beetle; I knew that the least of you possesses an ebon sheen and gleams of precious metals; and therefore the mire wherein the poet flung you shocked me somewhat. If M. Racine Junior had nothing better to say about you, he might as well have held his tongue; but he did not know you, and in his day there were only just a few who were beginning to have a dim conception of your nature.