f the sting. The Hairy Ammophila,
operating on her caterpillar, likewise recoils, but progressively,
from one segment to the next. Her deliberate surgery might receive a
quasi-explanation if we ascribe it to a certain uniformity. With the
Tachytes and the Mantis this paltry argument escapes us. Here are
no lancet-pricks regularly distributed; on the contrary, the
operating-method betrays a lack of symmetry which would be
inconceivable, if the organization of the patient did not serve as a
guide. The Tachytes therefore knows where her prey's nerve-centres lie;
or, to speak more correctly, she behaves as though she knew.

This science which is unconscious of itself has not been acquired, by
her and by her race, through experiments perfected from age to age and
habits transmitted from one generation to the next. It is impossible,
I am prepared to declare a hundred times, a thousand times over, it is
absolutely impossible to experiment and to learn an art when you are
lost if you do not succeed at the first attempt. Don't talk to me of
atavism, of small successes increasing by inheritance, when the novice,
if he misdirected his weapon, would be crushed in the trap of the two
saws and fall a prey to the savage Mantis! The peaceable Locust, if
missed, protests against the attack with a few kicks; the carnivorous
Mantis, who is in the habit of feasting on Wasps far more powerful than
the Tachytes, would protest by eating the bungler; the game would devour
the hunter, an excellent catch. Mantis-paralysing is a most perilous
trade and admits of no half-successes; you have to excel in it from the
first, under pain of death. No, the surgical art of the Tachytes is not
an acquired art. Whence then does it come, if not from the universal
knowledge in which all things move and have their being!

What would happen if, in exchange for her Praying Mantis, I were to give
the Tachytes a young Grasshopper? In rearing insects at home, I have
already noted that the larvae put up very well with this diet; and I
am surprised that the mother does not follow the example of the Tarsal
Tachytes and provide her family with a skewerful of Locusts instead
of the risky prey which she selects. The diet would be practically the
same; and the terrible shears would no longer be a danger. With such a
patient would her operating-method remain the same; should we again
see a sudden recoil after the first stab under the neck; or would the
vivisector modify h