The Lampyris doles out his tweaks. He distributes them methodically, without hurrying, and takes a brief rest after each of them, as though he wished to ascertain the effect produced. Their number is not great: half a dozen, at most, to subdue the prey and deprive it of all power of movement. That other pinches are administered later, at the time of eating, seems very likely, but I cannot say anything for certain, because the sequel escapes me. The first few, however--there are never many--are enough to impart inertia and loss of all feeling to the Mollusc, thanks to the prompt, I might almost say lightning, methods of the Lampyris, who, beyond a doubt, instils some poison or other by means of his grooved hooks. Here is the proof of the sudden efficacy of those twitches, so mild in appearance: I take the Snail from the Lampyris, who has operated on the edge of the mantle some four or five times. I prick him with a fine needle in the fore-part, which the animal, shrunk into its shell, still leaves exposed. There is no quiver of the wounded tissues, no reaction against the brutality of the needle. A corpse itself could not give fewer signs of life. Here is something even more conclusive: chance occasionally gives me Snails attacked by the Lampyris while they are creeping along, the foot slowly crawling, the tentacles swollen to their full extent. A few disordered movements betray a brief excitement on the part of the Mollusc and then everything ceases: the foot no longer slugs; the front part loses its graceful swan-neck curve; the tentacles become limp and give way under their own weight, dangling feebly like a broken stick. This condition persists.