The Hornet who has caught a Bee acts in much the same manner; but, in the case of an assailant of her dimensions, the struggle cannot last long, notwithstanding the victim’s sting. The Hornet may prepare her dish on the very flower where the capture was effected, or more often on some twig of an adjacent shrub. The Bee’s crop is first ripped open and the honey that runs out of it lapped up. The prize is thus a twofold one: a drop of honey for the huntress to feast upon and the Bee herself for the larvæ. Sometimes the wings are removed and also the abdomen; but generally the Hornet is satisfied with reducing the Bee to a shapeless mass, which she carries off without disdaining anything. Those parts which have no nutritive value, especially the wings, will be rejected on arriving at the nest. Lastly, she sometimes prepares the mash in the actual hunting-field, that is to say, she crushes the Bee between her mandibles after removing the wings, the legs, and at times the abdomen as well. Here then, in all its details, is the incident observed by Darwin. A Wasp (Vespa vulgaris) catches a big Fly (Eristalis tenax); she cuts off the victim’s head, wings, abdomen, and legs with her mandibles and keeps only the thorax, which she carries off flying. But here there is not the least breath of wind to explain the carving process; besides, the thing happens in a perfect shelter, in the thick tangle of the grass. The butcher rejects such parts of her prey as she considers valueless to her larvæ; and that is all about it. In short, the heroine of Darwin’s story is certainly a Wasp. Then what becomes of that rational calculation on the part of the insect which, the better to contend with the wind, cuts off its prey’s abdomen, head and wings and keeps only the thorax? It becomes a most simple incident, leading to none of the mighty consequences which the writer seeks to deduce from it: the very trivial incident of a Wasp who begins to carve up her prey on the spot and keeps only the stump, the one part which she considers fit for her larvæ. Far from seeing the least sign of reason in this, I look upon it as a mere act of instinct, one so elementary that it is really not worth expatiating upon. To disparage man and exalt animals in order to establish a point of contact, followed by a point of union, has been and still is the general tendency of the ‘advanced theories’ in fashion in our day. Ah, how often are these ‘sublime theories,’ that morbid craze of the time, based upon ‘proofs’ which, if subjected to the light of experiment, would lead to as ridiculous results as the learned Erasmus Darwin’s Sphex! CHAPTER VIII THE LANGUEDOCIAN SPHEX