protests of the patient.

The fatal stroke once delivered, the murderer remains for some time on
the body of the victim, clasping it face to face, for reasons that we
must now consider. It may be that the position is perilous for
Philanthus. The posture of attack and self-protection is abandoned, and
the ventral area, more vulnerable than the back, is exposed to the sting
of the bee. Now the dead bee retains for some minutes the reflex use of
the sting, as I know to my cost: for removing the bee too soon from the
aggressor, and handling it carelessly, I have received a most effectual
sting. In her long embrace of the poisoned bee, how does Philanthus
avoid this sting, which does not willingly give up its life without
vengeance? Are there not sometimes unexpected accidents? Perhaps.

Here is a fact which encourages me in this belief. I had placed under
the bell-glass at the same time four bees and as many Eristales, in
order to judge of the entomological knowledge of Philanthus as
exemplified in the distinction of species. Reciprocal quarrels broke out
among the heterogeneous group. Suddenly, in the midst of the tumult,
the killer is killed. Who has struck the blow? Certainly not the
turbulent but pacific Eristales; it was one of the bees, which by chance
had thrust truly in the mellay. When and how? I do not know. This
accident is unique in my experience; but it throws a light upon the
question. The bee is capable of withstanding its adversary; it can, with
a thrust of its envenomed needle, kill the would-be killer. That it does
not defend itself more skilfully when it falls into the hands of its
enemy is due to ignorance of fencing, not to the weakness of the arm.
And here again arises, more insistently than before, the question I
asked but now: how is it that the Philanthus has learned for purposes of
attack what the bee has not learned for purposes of defence. To this
difficulty I see only one reply: the one knows without having learned
and the other does not know, being incapable of learning.

Let us now examine the motives which induce the Philanthus to kill its
bee instead of paralysing it. The murder once committed, it does not
release its victim for a moment, but holding it tightly clasped with its
six legs pressed against its body, it commences to ravage the corpse. I
see it with the utmost brutality rooting with its mandibles in the
articulation of the neck, and often also in the more ample articulation
of t