the face of this danger which might disconcert the most
practised surgeon? The patient must first be disarmed and then operated
on.

And in fact the Calicurgus' sting, aimed from back to front, is driven
into the Epeira's mouth, with minute precautions and marked persistency.
On the instant, the poison-fangs close lifelessly and the formidable
quarry is powerless to harm. The Wasp's abdomen then extends its arc and
drives the needle behind the fourth pair of legs, on the median line,
almost at the junction of the belly and the cephalothorax. At this
point the skin is finer and more easily penetrable than elsewhere. The
remainder of the thoracic surface is covered with a tough breast-plate
which the sting would perhaps fail to perforate. The nerve-centres, the
source of the leg-movements, are situated a little above the wounded
point, but the back-to-front direction of the sting makes it possible
to reach them. This last wound results in the paralysis of all the eight
legs at once.

To enlarge upon it further would detract from the eloquence of this
performance. First of all, to safeguard the operator, a stab in the
mouth, that point so terribly armed, the most formidable of all; then,
to safeguard the larva, a second stab in the nerve-centres of the
thorax, to suppress the power of movement. I certainly suspected that
the slayers of robust Spiders were endowed with special talents; but
I was far from expecting their bold logic, which disarms before
it paralyses. So the Tarantula-huntress must behave, who, under my
bell-glasses, refused to surrender her secret. I now know what her
method is; it has been divulged by a colleague. She throws the terrible
Lycosa upon her back, pricks her prickers by stinging her in the mouth
and then, in comfort, with a single thrust of the lancet, obtains
paralysis of the legs.

I examine the Epeira immediately after the operation and the Tarantula
when the Calicurgus is dragging her by one leg to her burrow, at the
foot of some wall. For a little while longer, a minute at most, the
Epeira convulsively moves her legs. So long as these throes continue,
the Pompilus does not release her prey. She seems to watch the progress
of the paralysis. With the tips of her mandibles she explores the
Spider's mouth several times over, as though to ascertain if the
poison-fangs are really innocuous. When all movement subsides, the
Pompilus makes ready to drag her prey elsewhere. It is then I take
char