Meanwhile, the grub continues to move along on its back. Suddenly, it buckles and, with a jerk of the head, flings the enemy to a distance. Undaunted by all her failures, the Hymenopteron stands up, brushes her wings and recommences the assault of the colossus, almost always by clambering on the grub by the rear extremity. At last, after any number of fruitless attempts, the Scolia succeeds in attaining the proper position. She lies across the grub; her mandibles hold a point of the thorax on the dorsal face tight-gripped; her body, curved into an arch, passes under the grub and reaches the neighbourhood of the neck with the tip of the belly. Placed in grave danger, the Cetonia twists, buckles, unbuckles, turns and writhes. The Scolia does not interfere. Holding her victim in a close embrace, she turns with it, allows herself to be dragged above, below, aside, at the mercy of the contortions. So fierce is her determination that I am now able to remove the glass bell and watch the details of the drama in the open. Soon, notwithstanding the tumult, the tip of the Scolia’s belly feels that the suitable point is found. Then and not till then is the dart unsheathed. It is driven home. The thing is done. The grub, but now active and swollen, suddenly becomes inert and limp. It is paralyzed. Henceforth, all movement ceases, save in the antennæ and mouth-pieces, which will continue for a long time to declare a remnant of life. The place of the wound has never varied in the series of struggles under the glass bell: it occupies the middle of the dividing line between the prothorax and the mesothorax, on the ventral surface. Let us observe that the Cerceris, who operates upon Weevils, which insects have a concentrated nervous chain like that of the Cetonia grub, inserts her sting at the same point. The similarity of the nervous organization occasions a similarity of method. Let us observe also that the sting of the Scolia remains for some time in the wound and rummages with a pronounced persistency. To judge by the movements of the tip of the abdomen, one would say that the weapon is exploring and selecting. Free to turn about as it pleases within narrow limits, the sting’s point is probably searching for the little bundle of nerves which it must prick, or at least sprinkle with poison, in order to obtain a withering paralysis. I will not end my report of the duel without relating a few more facts, of minor importance. The Two-banded Scolia is an ardent persecutor of the Cetonia. At one sitting, the same mother stabs three grubs, one after the other, before my eyes. She refuses the fourth, perhaps through fatigue, or because her poison-phial is exhausted. Her refusal is but temporary. The next day, she begins anew and paralyzes two worms; the following day again, but with a zeal that diminishes from day to day.