must be done all over again and once more by laboriously climbing the height. The same mistake is repeated. Again the prey is incautiously left on the curved tile, again it slips and again it falls to the ground. With a composure which accidents such as these cannot disturb, the Sphex for the third time hoists up the Ephippiger by scaling the wall and, better advised, drags her forthwith right into the home. As even under these conditions no attempt has been made to carry the prey on the wing, it is clear that the Wasp is incapable of long flight with so heavy a load. To this incapacity we owe the few characteristics that form the subject of this chapter. A quarry that is not too big to permit the effort of flying makes of the Yellow-winged Sphex a semisocial species, that is to say, one seeking the company of her fellows; a quarry too heavy to carry through the air makes of the Languedocian Sphex a species vowed to solitary labour, a sort of savage disdainful of the pleasures that come from the proximity of one’s kind. The lighter or heavier weight of the game selected here determines the fundamental character of the huntress. CHAPTER IX THE WISDOM OF INSTINCT To paralyse her prey, the Languedocian Sphex, I have no doubt, pursues the method of the Cricket-huntress and drives her lancet repeatedly into the Ephippiger’s breast in order to strike the ganglia of the thorax. The process of wounding the nerve-centres must be familiar to her; and I am convinced beforehand of her consummate skill in that scientific operation. This is an art thoroughly known to all the Hunting Wasps, who carry a poisoned dart that has not been given them in vain. At the same time, I must confess that I have never yet succeeded in witnessing the deadly performance. This omission is due to the solitary life led by the Languedocian Sphex. When a number of burrows are dug on a common site and then provisioned, one has but to wait on the spot to see now one huntress and now another arrive with the game which they have caught. It is easy in these circumstances to try upon the new arrivals the substitution of a live prey for the doomed victim and to repeat the experiment as often as we wish. Besides, the certainty that we shall not lack subjects of observation, as and when wanted, enables us to arrange everything in advance. With the Languedocian Sphex these conditions of success do not exist. To set out expressly to look for her, with one’s material prepared, is almost useless, as the solitary insect is scattered one by one over vast expanses of ground. Moreover, if you do come upon her, it will most often be in an idle hour and you will get nothing out of her. As I said before, it is nearly always unexpectedly, when your thoughts are elsewhere engaged, that the Sphex appears, dragging her Ephippiger after her.