ganglia are plainly distinguishable from one another, although they are
set very close together; the rest are all in contact. The largest are
the three thoracic ganglia and the eleventh.

After ascertaining these facts, I remembered Swammerdam's investigations
into the grub of the Monoceros, our Oryctes nasicornis. (Jan Swammerdam
(1637-1680), the Dutch naturalist and anatomist.--Translator's Note.) I
chanced to possess an abridgement of the "Biblia naturae," the masterly
work of the father of insect anatomy. I consulted the venerable volume.
It informed me that the learned Dutchman had been struck, long before
I was, by an anatomical peculiarity similar to that which the larvae
of the Cetoniae and Anoxiae had shown me in their nerve-centres. Having
observed in the Silk-worm a nervous system formed of ganglia distinct
one from the other, he was quite surprised to find that, in the grub
of the Oryctes, the same system was concentrated into a short chain of
ganglia in juxtaposition. His was the surprise of the anatomist who,
studying the organ qua organ, sees for the first time an unusual
conformation. Mine was of a different nature: I was amazed to see the
precision with which the paralysis of the victim sacrificed by the
Scolia, a paralysis so profound in spite of the difficulties of an
underground operation, had guided my forecast as to structure when,
anticipating the dissection, I declared in favour of an exceptional
concentration of the nervous system. Physiology perceived what anatomy
had not yet revealed, at all events to my eyes, for since then,
on dipping into my books, I have learnt that these anatomical
peculiarities, which were then so new to me, are now within the domain
of current science. We know that, in the Scarabaeidae, both the larva
and the perfect insect are endowed with a concentrated nervous system.

The Garden Scolia attacks Oryctes nasicornis; the Two-banded Scolia
the Cetonia; the Interrupted Scolia the Anoxia. All three operate below
ground, under the most unfavourable conditions; and all three have for
their victim a larva of one of the Scarabaeidae, which, thanks to the
exceptional arrangement of its nerve-centres, lends itself, alone of all
larvae, to the Wasp's successful enterprises. In the presence of
this underground game, so greatly varied in size and shape and yet
so judiciously selected to facilitate paralysis, I do not hesitate to
generalize and I accept, as the ration of the other S