ow, or even drop their prey. I profit by
these rare occasions to witness the tragedy.

The dispossessed Wasp recognizes instantly, from the proud bearing of
the substituted Mantis, that she is no longer embracing and carrying off
an inoffensive carcase. Her hovering, hitherto silent, develops a buzz,
perhaps to overawe the victim; her flight becomes an extremely rapid
oscillation, always behind the quarry. It is as who should say the quick
movement of a pendulum swinging without a wire to hang from. The Mantis,
however, lifts herself boldly upon her four hind-legs; she raises the
fore-part of her body, opens, closes and again opens her shears and
presents them threateningly at the enemy; using a privilege which no
other insect shares, she turns her head this way and that, as we do when
we look over our shoulders; she faces her assailant, ready to strike a
return blow wheresoever the attack may come. It is the first time that
I have witnessed such defensive daring. What will be the outcome of it
all?

The Wasp continues to oscillate behind the Mantis, in order to avoid the
formidable grappling-engine; then, suddenly, when she judges that the
other is baffled by the rapidity of her manoeuvres, she hurls herself
upon the insect's back, seizes its neck with her mandibles, winds her
legs round its thorax and hastily delivers a first thrust of the sting,
to the front, at the root of the lethal legs. Complete success! The
deadly shears fall powerless. The operator then lets herself slip as she
might slide down a pole, retreats along the Mantis' back and, going a
trifle lower, less than a finger's breadth, she stops and paralyses,
this time without hurrying herself, the two pairs of hind-legs. It is
done: the patient lies motionless; only the tarsi quiver, twitching in
their last convulsions. The sacrificer brushes her wings for a moment
and polishes her antennae by passing them through her mouth, an habitual
sign of tranquillity returning after the emotions of the conflict; she
seizes the game by the neck, takes it in her legs and flies away with
it.

What do you say to it all? Do not the scientist's theory and the
insect's practice agree most admirably? Has not the animal accomplished
to perfection what anatomy and physiology enabled us to foretell?
Instinct, a gratuitous attribute, an unconscious inspiration, rivals
knowledge, that most costly acquisition. What strikes me most is the
sudden recoil after the first thrust o