While the only half-paralysed Ephippiger cannot imperil the larva, fixed on a part of the body where resistance is impossible, the case is different with the Sphex, who has to cart her prize home. First, having still, to a great extent, preserved the use of its tarsi, the victim clutches with these at any blade of grass encountered on the road along which it is being dragged; and this produces an obstacle to the hauling process which is difficult to overcome. The Sphex, already heavily burdened by the weight of her load, is liable to exhaust herself with her efforts to make the other insect relax its desperate grip in grassy places. But this is the least serious drawback. The Ephippiger preserves the complete use of her mandibles, which snap and bite with their customary vigour. Now what these terrible nippers have in front of them is just the slender body of the enemy, at a time when she is in her hauling attitude. The antennæ, in fact, are grasped not far from their roots, so that the mouth of the victim dragged along on its back faces either the thorax or the abdomen of the Sphex, who, standing high on her long legs, takes good care, I am convinced, not to be caught in the mandibles yawning underneath her. At all events, a moment of forgetfulness, a slip, the merest trifle can bring her within the reach of two powerful nippers, which would not neglect the opportunity of taking a pitiless vengeance. In the more difficult cases at any rate, if not always, the action of those formidable pincers must be done away with; and the fish-hooks of the legs must be rendered incapable of increasing their resistance to the process of transport.