orpor, or, more
simply, by the following example.

A Grey Worm which had just received its first sting on the third
thoracic segment repulses the Ammophila and with a jerk hurls her to a
distance. I profit by the occasion and take hold of the grub. The legs
of this third segment only are paralysed; the others retain their usual
mobility. However helpless in the two injured legs, the animal can walk
very well; it buries itself in the earth, returning to the surface at
night to gnaw the stump of lettuce with which I have served it. For a
fortnight my paralytic retains perfect liberty of action, except in the
segment operated on; then it dies, not of its wound but accidentally.
All this time the effect of the poison has not spread beyond the
inoculated segment.

At any point where the sting enters, anatomy informs us of the presence
of a nervous nucleus. Is this centre directly smitten by the weapon?
Or is it poisoned with virus, from a very small distance, by the
progressive impregnation of the neighbouring tissues? This is the
doubtful point, though it does not in any way invalidate the precision
of the abdominal injections, which are comparatively neglected. As for
those in the caterpillar's thorax, their precision is beyond dispute.
After the Ammophilae, the Scoliae and, above all, the Calicurgi, is it
really necessary to bring into court yet other witnesses, who would all
swear that, with modifications of detail, the movement of their lancet
is strictly regulated by the nervous system of the prey? This ought
to be enough. The proof is established for those who have ears to hear
with.

Others delight in objections whose oddity surprises me. They see in the
poison of the Hunting Wasps an antiseptic liquid and in victuals stored
in their burrows preserved meats which are kept fresh not by a remnant
of life but by the virus and its microbes. Come, my learned masters, let
us just talk the matter over, between ourselves. Have you ever seen the
larder of a skilled Hunting Wasp, a Sphex for instance, a Scolia, an
Ammophila? You haven't, have you? I thought as much. Yet it would be
better to begin by doing so, before bringing the preservative microbe
on the scene. The slightest examination would have shown you that the
victuals cannot be compared exactly with smoked hams. The thing moves,
therefore it is not dead. There you have the whole matter, in its
artless simplicity. The palpi move, the mandibles open and shut, the
t