s.
And these desperadoes dare to brave that deadly trap! Why do they not
follow your judicious advice? They should sting the plump belly, which
is wholly unprotected. They do not; and they have their reasons, as have
the others.

All, from the first to the last, show us, clear as water from the rock,
that the outer structure of the victims operated on counts for nothing
in the method of operating. This is determined by the inner anatomy. The
points wounded are not stung because they are the only points penetrable
by the lancet; they are stung because they fulfil an important
condition, without which penetrability loses its value. This condition
is none other than the immediate proximity of the nerve-centres whose
influence has to be suppressed. When at close quarters with her prey,
whether soft or armour-clad, the huntress behaves as if she understood
the nervous system better than any of us. The thoughtless objection
about the only penetrable points is, I hope, swept aside forever.

I am also told:

"It is possible, if it comes to that, for the sting to be delivered in
the neighbourhood of the nerve-centres; in a victim at most three or
four centimetres long, distances are very small. But a casual there or
thereabouts is a very different thing from the precision of which you
speak."

Oh, they are "thereabouts," are they? We shall see! You want figures,
millimetres, fractions? You shall have them!

First I call to witness the Interrupted Scolia. If the reader no longer
has her method of operating in mind, I will beg him to refresh his
memory. The two adversaries, in the preliminary conflict, may be fairly
well represented by two rings interlocked not in the same plane but at
right angles. The Scolia grips a point of the Anoxia-grub's thorax; she
curves her body underneath it and, while encircling the grub, gropes
with the tip of her abdomen along the median line of the larva's neck.
Owing to her transversal position, the assailant is now free to aim her
weapon in a slightly slanting direction, whether towards the head or
towards the thorax, at the same point of entry in the larva's throat.
Between the two opposite slants of the sting, which is itself
very short, what can the distance be? Two millimetres (.078
inch.--Translator's Note.), perhaps less. That is very little. No
matter: let the operator make a mistake of this length--negligible, you
may tell me--let the sting slant towards the head instead of slanting