No, its place is not in the mass of provisions, for the caterpillars, I repeat, are not sufficiently harmless. Their paralysis is incomplete, as is proved by their contortions when I irritate them and evidenced moreover by a very important fact. I have sometimes taken from the cell of Eumenes Amadei a few head of game half-transformed into chrysalids. It is evident that the transformation was effected in the cell itself and therefore after the operation which the Wasp had performed upon them. Whereof does this operation consist? I cannot say precisely, never having seen the huntress at work. The sting most certainly has played its part; but where? And how often? This is what we do not know. What we can declare is that the torpor is not very profound, inasmuch as the patient sometimes retains enough vitality to shed its skin and become a chrysalis. Everything thus tends to make us ask by what stratagem the egg is shielded from danger. This stratagem I longed to discover; I would not be put off by the scarcity of nests, by the irksomeness of the search, by the risk of sunstroke, by the time taken up in the vain breaking open of unsuitable cells; I meant to see and I saw. Here is my method: with the point of a knife and a pair of nippers, I make a side opening, a window, beneath the dome of E. Amadei and E. pomiformis. I work with the greatest care, so as not to injure the recluse. I used to attack the cupola from the top; I now attack it from the side. I stop when the breach is large enough to allow me to see the state of things within. What is this state of things? I pause to give the reader time to reflect and to think out for himself a means of safety that will protect the egg and afterwards the grub in the perilous conditions which I have set forth. Seek, think and contrive, such of you as have inventive minds. Have you guessed it? Do you give it up? I may as well tell you. The egg is not laid upon the provisions; it hangs from the top of the cupola by a thread which vies with that of a Spider’s web for slenderness. The dainty cylinder quivers and swings at the least breath; it reminds me of the famous pendulum hung from the dome of the Panthéon to prove the rotation of the earth. The victuals are heaped up underneath.