第83章 OBJECTIONS AND REJOINDERS(4)

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. Iprofit 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 tarsi 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, Ithought 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?