Two Ephippigers whose cervical ganglia I squeeze and compress with a forceps fall rapidly into a state resembling that of the victims of the Sphex. Only, they grate their cymbals if I tease them with a needle; and the legs still retain a few disordered and languid movements. The difference no doubt is due to the fact that my patients were not previously injured in their thoracic ganglia, as were those of the Sphex, who were first stung on the breast. Allowing for this important condition, we see that I was none too bad a pupil and that I imitated pretty closely my teacher of physiology, the Sphex. I confess it was not without a certain satisfaction that I succeeded in doing almost as well as the insect. As well? What am I talking about? Wait a bit and you shall see that I still have much to learn from the Sphex. For what happens is that my two patients very soon die: I mean, they really die; and, in four or five days, I have nothing but putrid corpses before my eyes. And the Wasp’s Ephippiger? I need hardly say that the Wasp’s Ephippiger, even ten days after the operation, is perfectly fresh, just as she will be required by the larva for which she has been destined. Nay, more: only a few hours after the operation under the skull, there reappeared, as though nothing had occurred, the disorderly movements of the legs, antennæ, palpi, ovipositor and mandibles; in a word, the insect returned to the condition wherein it was before the Sphex bit its brain. And these movements were kept up after, though they became feebler every day. The Sphex had merely reduced her victim to a passing state of torpor, lasting amply long enough to enable her to bring it home without resistance; and I, who thought myself her rival, was but a clumsy and barbarous butcher: I killed my prize. She, with her inimitable dexterity, shrewdly compressed the brain to produce a lethargy of a few hours; I, brutal through ignorance, perhaps crushed under my forceps that delicate organ, the main seat of life. If anything could prevent me from blushing at my defeat, it would be the conviction that very few, if any, could vie with these clever ones in cleverness.