arsi quiver, the antennae and the abdominal filaments wave to and
fro, the abdomen throbs, the intestine rejects its contents, the animal
reacts to the stimulus of a needle, all of which signs are hardly
compatible with the idea of pickled meat.

Have you had the curiosity to look through the pages in which I set
forth the detailed results of my observations? You haven't, have
you? Again, I thought as much. It is a pity. You would there find, in
particular, the history of certain Ephippigers who, after being stung
by the Sphex according to rule, were reared by myself by hand. You must
agree that these are queer preserves to be produced by the use of an
antiseptic fluid. They accept the mouthfuls which I offer them on the
tip of a straw; they feed, they sit up and take nourishment. I shall
never live to see tinned sardines doing as much.

I will avoid tedious repetition and content myself with adding to my
old sheaf of proofs a few facts which have not yet been related. The
Nest-building Odynerus showed us in her cells a few Chrysomela-larvae
fixed by the hinder part to the side of the reed. The grub fastens
itself in this way to the poplar-leaf to obtain a purchase when the
moment has come for leaving the larval slough. Do not these preparations
for the nymphosis tell us plainly that the creature is not dead?

The Hairy Ammophila affords us an even better example. A number of
caterpillars operated on before my eyes attained, some sooner, some
later, the chrysalis stage. My notes are explicit on the subject of some
of them, taken on Verbascum sinuatum. Sacrificed on the 14th of April,
they were still irritable when tickled with a straw a fortnight after.
A little later, the pale-green colouring of the early stages is replaced
by a reddish brown, except on two or three segments of the median
ventral surface. The skin wrinkles and splits, but does not come
detached of its own accord. I can easily remove it in shreds. Under
this slough appears the firm, chestnut-brown horn integument of the
chrysalis. The development of the nymphosis is so correct that for a
moment the crazy hope occurs to me that I may see a Turnip-moth come out
of this mummy, the victim of a dozen dagger-thrusts. For the rest, there
is no attempt at spinning a cocoon, no jet of silky threads flung out
by the caterpillar before turning into a chrysalis. Perhaps under normal
conditions metamorphosis takes place without this protection. However,
the moth w