The Sphex’ task is accomplished; and I will finish mine with an examination of her weapon. The organ destined for the elaboration of her poison consists of two prettily-ramified tubes, ending separately in a common reservoir or phial, shaped like a pea. From this phial starts a slender channel which runs down the axis of the sting and conducts the little drop of poison to its tip. The dimensions of the lancet are very small and not such as one would expect from the size of the Sphex, and especially from the effects which its prick produces on the Crickets. The point is quite smooth and entirely deprived of those backward indentations which we find in the Hive-bee’s sting. The reason for this is obvious. The Bee uses her sting only to avenge an injury, even at the cost of her life; and the teeth of the dart resist its withdrawal from the wound and thus cause mortal ruptures in the viscera at the extremity of the abdomen. What would the Sphex have done with a weapon that would have been fatal to her on her first expedition? Supposing that the dart could be withdrawn in spite of its teeth, I doubt whether any Hymenopteron using her weapon chiefly to wound the game destined for her larvæ would be supplied with a toothed sting. With her, the dirk is not a show weapon, unsheathed to satisfy revenge: revenge, the so-called pleasure of the gods, but a very costly pleasure, for the vindictive Bee sometimes pays for it with her life; it is an implement for use, a tool, on which the future of the grubs depends. It must therefore be one easy to wield in the struggle with the captured prey; it must be capable of being inserted in the flesh and withdrawn without the least hesitation, a condition much better fulfilled by a smooth than by a barbed blade. I wished to find out at my own expense if the Sphex’ sting is very painful, this sting which lays low sturdy victims with terrible rapidity. Well, I confess with profound admiration that it is insignificant and bears no comparison, for intensity of pain, with the stings of the irascible Bees and Social Wasps. It hurts so little that, instead of using the forceps, I would not scruple to take in my fingers any live Sphex-wasps that I needed in my experiments. I can say the same of the different Cerceres, of the Philanthi, [14] of the Palari, of even the huge Scoliæ, [15] whose very view inspires dismay, and, generally speaking, of all the Hunting Wasps that I have been able to observe. I make an exception of the Spider-huntresses, the Pompili; [16] and even then their sting is much less painful than the Bees’.