Social Life in the Insect World

by Jean-Henri Fabre

Turn by turn tumbled and tumbling, the two insects roll over and over. But the struggle soon quiets down, and the assassin commences to plunder her prize. I have seen her adopt two methods. In the first, more usual than the other, the bee is lying on the ground, upon its back, and Philanthus, mouth to mouth and abdomen to abdomen, clasps it with her six legs, while she seizes its neck in her mandibles. The abdomen is then curved forward and gropes for a moment for the desired spot in the upper part of the thorax, which it finally reaches. The sting plunges into the victim, remains in the wound for a moment, and all is over. Without loosing the victim, which is still tightly clasped, the murderer restores her abdomen to the normal position and holds it pressed against that of the bee.

By the second method Philanthus operates standing upright. Resting on the hinder feet and the extremity of the folded wings, she rises proudly to a vertical position, holding the bee facing her by her four anterior claws. In order to get the bee into the proper position for the final stroke, she swings the poor creature round and back again with the careless roughness of a child dandling a doll. Her pose is magnificent, solidly based upon her sustaining tripod, the two posterior thighs and the end of the wings, she flexes the abdomen forwards and upwards, and, as before, stings the bee in the upper part of the thorax. The originality of her pose at the moment of striking surpasses anything I have ever witnessed.

The love of knowledge in matters of natural history is not without its cruelties. To make absolutely certain of the point attained by the sting, and to inform myself completely concerning this horrible talent for murder, I have provoked I dare not confess how many assassinations in captivity. Without a single exception, the bee has always been stung in the throat. In the preparations for the final blow the extremity of the abdomen may of course touch here and there, at different points of the thorax or abdomen, but it never remains there, nor is the sting unsheathed, as may easily be seen. Once the struggle has commenced the Philanthus is so absorbed in her operations that I can remove the glass cover and follow every detail of the drama with my magnifying-glass.

The invariable situation of the wound being proved, I bend back the head of the bee, so as to open the articulation. I see under what we may call the chin of the bee a white spot, hardly a twenty-fifth of an inch square, where the horny integuments are lacking, and the fine skin is exposed uncovered. It is there, always there, in that tiny defect in the bee's armour, that the sting is inserted. Why is this point attacked rather than another? Is it the only point that is vulnerable? Stretch open the articulation of the corselet to the rear of the first pair of legs. There you will see an area of defenceless skin, fully as delicate as that of the throat, but much more extensive. The horny armour of the bee has no larger breach. If the Philanthus were guided solely by considerations of vulnerability she would certainly strike there, instead of insistently seeking the narrow breach in the throat. The sting would not grope or hesitate, it would find its mark at the first attempt. No; the poisoned thrust is not conditioned by mechanical considerations; the murderer disdains the wide breach in the corselet and prefers the lesser one beneath the chin, for purely logical reasons which we will now attempt to elicit.

The moment the bee is stung I release it from the aggressor. I am struck in the first place by the sudden inertia of the antennæ and the various members of the mouth; organs which continue to move for so long a time in the victims of most predatory creatures. I see none of the indications with which my previous studies of paralysed victims have made me familiar: the antennæ slowly waving, the mandibles opening and closing, the palpæ trembling for days, for weeks, even for months. The thighs tremble for a minute or two at most; and the struggle is over. Henceforth there is complete immobility. The significance of this sudden inertia is forced upon me: the Philanthus has stabbed the cervical ganglions. Hence the sudden immobility of all the organs of the head: hence the real, not the apparent death of the bee. The Philanthus does not paralyse merely, but kills.

This is one step gained. The murderer chooses the point below the chin as the point of attack, in order to reach the principal centres of innervation, the cephalic ganglions, and thus to abolish life at a single blow. The vital centres being poisoned, immediate death must follow. If the object of the Philanthus were merely to cause paralysis she would plunge her sting into the defective corselet, as does the Cerceris in attacking the weevil, whose armour is quite unlike the bee's. Her aim is to kill outright, as we shall presently see; she wants a corpse, not a paralytic. We must admit that her technique is admirable; our human murderers could do no better.

Her posture of attack, which is very different to that of the paralysers, is infallibly fatal to the victim. Whether she delivers the attack in the erect position or prone, she holds the bee before her, head to head and thorax to thorax. In this position it suffices to flex the abdomen in order to reach the joint of the neck, and to plunge the sting obliquely upwards into the head of the captive. If the bee were seized in the inverse position, or if the sting were to go slightly astray, the results would be totally different; the sting, penetrating the bee in a downward direction, would poison the first thoracic ganglion and provoke a partial paralysis only. What art, to destroy a miserable bee! In what fencing-school did the slayer learn that terrible upward thrust beneath the chin? And as she has learned it, how is it that her victim, so learned in matters of architecture, so conversant with the politics of Socialism, has so far learned nothing in her own defence? As vigorous as the aggressor, she also carries a rapier, which is even more formidable and more painful in its results—at all events, when my finger is the victim! For centuries and centuries Philanthus has stored her cellars with the corpses of bees, yet the innocent victim submits, and the annual decimation of her race has not taught her how to deliver herself from the scourge by a well-directed thrust. I am afraid I shall never succeed in understanding how it is that the assailant has acquired her genius for sudden murder while the assailed, better armed and no less powerful, uses her dagger at random, and so far without effect. If the one has learned something from the prolonged exercise of the attack, then the other should also have learned something from the prolonged exercise of defence, for attack and defence are of equal significance in the struggle for life. Among the theorists of our day, is there any so far-sighted as to be able to solve this enigma?

I will take this opportunity of presenting a second point which embarrasses me; it is the carelessness—it is worse than that—the imbecility of the bee in the presence of the Philanthus. One would naturally suppose that the persecuted insect, gradually instructed by family misfortune, would exhibit anxiety at the approach of the ravisher, and would at least try to escape. But in my bell-glasses or wire-gauze cages I see nothing of the kind. Once the first excitement due to imprisonment has passed the bee takes next to no notice of its terrible neighbour. I have seen it side by side with Philanthus on the same flower; assassin and future victim were drinking from the same goblet. I have seen it stupidly coming to inquire what the stranger might be, as the latter crouched watching on the floor. When the murderer springs it is usually upon some bee which passes before her, and throws itself, so to speak, into her clutches; either thoughtlessly or out of curiosity. There is no frantic terror, no sign of anxiety, no tendency to escape. How is it that the experience of centuries, which is said to teach so much to the lower creatures, has not taught the bee even the beginning of apine wisdom: a deep-rooted horror of the Philanthus? Does the bee count upon its sting? But the unhappy creature is no fencer; it thrusts without method, at random. Nevertheless, let us watch it at the final and fatal moment.

When the ravisher brings her sting into play the bee also uses its sting, and with fury. I see the point thrusting now in this direction, now in that; but in empty air, or grazing and slipping over the convexity of the murderer's back, which is violently flexed. These blows have no serious results. In the position assumed by the two as they struggle the abdomen of the Philanthus is inside and that of the bee outside; thus the sting of the latter has under its point only the dorsal face of the enemy, which is convex and slippery, and almost invulnerable, so well is it armoured. There is no breach there by which the sting might possibly enter; and the operation takes place with the certainty of a skilful surgeon using the lancet, despite the indignant protests of the patient.

The fatal stroke once delivered, the murderer remains for some time on the body of the victim, clasping it face to face, for reasons that we must now consider. It may be that the position is perilous for Philanthus. The posture of attack and self-protection is abandoned, and the ventral area, more vulnerable than the back, is exposed to the sting of the bee. Now the dead bee retains for some minutes the reflex use of the sting, as I know to my cost: for removing the bee too soon from the aggressor, and handling it carelessly, I have received a most effectual sting. In her long embrace of the poisoned bee, how does Philanthus avoid this sting, which does not willingly give up its life without vengeance? Are there not sometimes unexpected accidents? Perhaps.