After making the circle of spectators stand back so as to leave the field clear for the Sphex, I take away her prey with a pair of pincers and at once give her in exchange one of my Ephippigers, carrying a sword at the end of her belly, like the game which I have abstracted. The dispossessed Wasp stamps her feet two or three times; and that is the only sign of impatience which she gives. She goes for her new prey, which is too stout, too obese even to try to avoid pursuit, grips it with her mandibles by the saddle-shaped corselet, gets astride and, curving her abdomen, slips the end of it under the Ephippiger’s thorax. Here, no doubt, some stings are administered, though I am unable to state the number exactly, because of the difficulty of observation. The Ephippiger, a peaceable victim, suffers herself to be operated on without resistance; she is like the silly Sheep of our slaughter-houses. The Sphex takes her time and wields her lancet with a deliberation which favours accuracy of aim. So far, the observer has nothing to complain of; but the prey touches the ground with its breast and belly, and exactly what happens underneath escapes his eye. As for interfering and lifting the Ephippiger a little, so as to see better, that must not be thought of: the murderess would resheathe her weapon and retire. The act that follows is easy to observe. After stabbing the thorax, the tip of the abdomen appears under the victim’s neck, which the operator forces open by pressing the nape. At this point the sting probes with marked persistency, as if the prick administered here were more effective than elsewhere. One would be inclined to think that the nerve-centre attacked is the lower part of the œsophageal chain; but the continuance of movement in the mouth-parts—the mandibles, jaws and palpi—controlled by this seat of innervation shows that such is not the case. Through the neck the Sphex reaches simply the ganglia of the thorax, or at any rate the first of them, which is more easily accessible through the thin skin of the neck than through the integuments of the chest.