towards the thorax; and the result of the operation will be entirely
different. With a slant towards the head, the cerebral ganglia are
wounded and their lesion causes sudden death. This is the stroke of
the Philanthus, who kills her Bee by stinging her from below, under the
chin. The Scolia needed a motionless but not dead victim, one that would
supply fresh victuals; she will now have only a corpse, which will soon
go bad and poison the larva.

With a slant towards the thorax, the sting wounds the little mass of
nerve-cells in the thorax. This is the regulation stroke, the one which
will induce paralysis and leave the small amount of life needed to keep
the provisions fresh. A millimetre higher kills; a millimetre lower
paralyses. On this tiny deviation the salvation of the Scolia race
depends. You need not fear that the operator will make any mistake in
this micrometrical performance: her sting always slants towards the
thorax, although the opposite inclination is just as practicable and
easy. What would be the outcome of a there or thereabouts under these
conditions? Very often a corpse, a form of food fatal to the grub.

The Two-banded Scolia stings a little lower down, on the line of
demarcation between the first two thoracic segments. Her position is
likewise transversal in relation to the Cetonia-grub; but the distance
of the cervical ganglia from the point where the sting enters would
possibly not allow the weapon turned towards the head to inflict a
lesion followed by sudden death as in the above instance. I am calling
this witness with another object. It is extremely unusual for the
operator, no matter what her prey or her method, to make a slight
mistake and sting merely somewhere near the requisite point. I see them
all groping with the tip of the abdomen, sometimes seeking persistently,
before unsheathing. They thrust only when the point beneath the sting
is precisely that at which the wound will produce its full effect. The
Two-banded Scolia in particular will struggle with the Cetonia-grub for
half an hour at a time to enable herself to drive in the stiletto at the
right spot.

Wearied by an endless scuffle, one of my captives committed before my
eyes a slight blunder, an unprecedented thing. Her weapon entered a
little to one side, not quite a millimetre from the central point and
still, of course, on the line of demarcation between the first two
thoracic segments. I at once laid hold of the precious