ne side, motionless and
incapable of bodily contortions or said an jerks of its hinder
segments. If the mandibles try to snap, if the legs give a kick or two,
they find nothing in front of them: the Ammophila's egg is at the
opposite side. The tiny grub is thus able, as soon as it hatches, to
dig into the giant's belly in full security.

How different are the conditions in the Eumenes' cell. The caterpillars
are imperfectly paralysed, perhaps because they have received but a
single stab; they toss about when touched with a pin; they are bound to
wriggle when bitten by the larva. If the egg is laid on one of them,
the first morsel will, I admit, be consumed without danger, on
condition that the point of attack be wisely chosen; but there remain
others which are not deprived of every means of defence. Let a movement
take place in the mass; and the egg, shifted from the upper layer, will
tumble into a pitfall of legs and mandibles. The least thing is enough
to jeopardize its existence; and this least thing has every chance of
being brought about in the disordered heap of caterpillars. The egg, a
tiny cylinder, transparent as crystal, is extremely delicate: a touch
withers it, the least pressure crushes it.

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 shown, on
the other hand, by a very important fact. I have sometimes taken from
Eumenes Amedei's cell a few heads 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 are able to declare is that the torpor is not
very deep, inasmuch as the patient sometimes retains enough vitality to
shed its skin and become a chrysalid. 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 searches, by the risk of
sunstroke, by the time taken up, by the vain breaking open of
unsuitable cells; I meant to see and I saw. Here is my method: with the
point o