Let us then suppose an academy of anatomists and physiologists; let us imagine a congress at which the question is raised among such men as Flourens, [9] Magendie [10] and Claude Bernard. [11] If we want to obtain both complete immobility of the victim and also its preservation during a long period without going bad, the simplest and most natural idea which comes to us is that of tinned foods. Our congress would suggest the use of some preserving liquid, just as the famous Landes scientist did when he was confronted with his Buprestes; they would attribute exquisite antiseptic virtues to the Wasp’s poison-fluid; but these strange virtues would still remain to be proved. And perhaps the conclusion of that learned assembly, like the conclusion of the sage of the Landes, would be a purely gratuitous supposition which would simply substitute one unknown quantity for another, giving us in the place of the mystery of those uncorrupted tissues the mystery of that wonderful preserving fluid. If we insist, if we point out that the larvæ need, not preserved food, which could never possess the properties of still palpitating flesh, but something that shall be just as if it were live prey, despite its complete inertia, the learned congress, after due reflection, will fix on paralysis: ‘Yes, that’s it, of course! The creature must be paralysed; it must be deprived of movement, without being deprived of life.’ There is only one way of achieving this result: to injure, cut or destroy the insect’s nervous system in one or more skilfully-selected places. But, even at that stage, if left in hands unfamiliar with the anatomical secrets of a delicate organism, the question would not have advanced much further. What in fact is the disposition of this nervous system which has to be smitten if we would paralyse the insect without at the same time killing it? And, first of all, where is it? In the head, no doubt, and down the back, like the brain and the spinal marrow of the higher animals. ‘You make a grave mistake,’ our congress would say. ‘The insect is like an inverted animal, walking on its back; that is to say, instead of having the spinal marrow on the top, it has it below, along the breast and the belly. The operation on the insect to be paralysed must therefore be performed on the lower surface and on that surface alone.’