Two Ephippigers whose cervical ganglia I squeeze and compress with a forceps fall rapidly into a state resembling that of the victims of the Sphex. Only, they grate their cymbals if I tease them with a needle; and the legs still retain a few disordered and languid movements. The difference no doubt is due to the fact that my patients were not previously injured in their thoracic ganglia, as were those of the Sphex, who were first stung on the breast. Allowing for this important condition, we see that I was none too bad a pupil and that I imitated pretty closely my teacher of physiology, the Sphex. I confess it was not without a certain satisfaction that I succeeded in doing almost as well as the insect.
As well? What am I talking about? Wait [[162]]a bit and you shall see that I still have much to learn from the Sphex. For what happens is that my two patients very soon die: I mean, they really die; and, in four or five days, I have nothing but putrid corpses before my eyes. And the Wasp’s Ephippiger? I need hardly say that the Wasp’s Ephippiger, even ten days after the operation, is perfectly fresh, just as she will be required by the larva for which she has been destined. Nay, more: only a few hours after the operation under the skull, there reappeared, as though nothing had occurred, the disorderly movements of the legs, antennæ, palpi, ovipositor and mandibles; in a word, the insect returned to the condition wherein it was before the Sphex bit its brain. And these movements were kept up after, though they became feebler every day. The Sphex had merely reduced her victim to a passing state of torpor, lasting amply long enough to enable her to bring it home without resistance; and I, who thought myself her rival, was but a clumsy and barbarous butcher: I killed my prize. She, with her inimitable dexterity, shrewdly compressed the brain to produce a lethargy of a few hours; I, brutal through ignorance, perhaps crushed under my forceps that delicate organ, the main seat of life. If anything could prevent me from blushing [[163]]at my defeat, it would be the conviction that very few, if any, could vie with these clever ones in cleverness.
Ah, I now understand why the Sphex does not use her sting to injure the cervical ganglia! A drop of poison injected here, at the centre of vital force, would destroy the whole nervous system; and death would follow soon after. But it is not death that the huntress wishes to obtain; the larvæ have not the least use for dead game, for a corpse, in short, smelling of corruption; and all that she wants to bring about is a lethargy, a passing torpor, which will put a stop to the victim’s resistance during the carting process, this resistance being difficult to overcome and moreover dangerous for the Sphex. The torpor is obtained by a method known in laboratories of experimental physiology: compression of the brain. The Sphex acts like a Flourens,[1] who, laying bare an animal’s brain and bearing upon the cerebral mass, forthwith suppresses intelligence, will, sensibility and movement. The pressure is removed; and everything reappears. Even so do the remains of the Ephippiger’s life reappear, as the lethargic effects of a skilfully-directed pressure pass off. The ganglia of the skull, [[164]]squeezed between the mandibles but without fatal contusions, gradually recover their activity and put an end to the general torpor. Admit that it is all alarmingly scientific.
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Fortune has her entomological whims: you run after her and catch no glimpse of her; you forget about her and behold, she comes tapping at your door! How vainly I watched and waited, how many useless journeys I made to see the Languedocian Sphex sacrifice her Ephippigers! Twenty years pass; these pages are in the printer’s hands; and, one day early this month, on the 8th of August 1878, my son Emile comes rushing into my study:
‘Quick!’ he shouts. ‘Come quick: there’s a Sphex dragging her prey under the plane-trees, outside the door of the yard!’
Emile knew all about the business, from what I had told him, to amuse him when we used to sit up late, and better still from similar incidents which he had witnessed in our life out of doors. He is right. I run out and see a magnificent Languedocian Sphex dragging a paralysed Ephippiger by the antennæ. She is making for the hen-house close by and seems anxious to scale the wall, with the object of fixing her burrow under some tile on the roof; for, a few years ago, in the same place, I saw a [[165]]Sphex of the same species accomplish the ascent with her game and make her home under the arch of a badly-joined tile. Perhaps the present Wasp is descended from the one who performed that arduous climb.
A like feat seems about to be repeated; and this time before numerous witnesses, for all the family, working under the shade of the plane-trees, come and form a circle around the Sphex. They wonder at the unceremonious boldness of the insect, which is not diverted from its work by a gallery of onlookers; all are struck by its proud and lusty bearing, as, with raised head and the victim’s antennæ firmly gripped in its mandibles, it drags the enormous burden after it. I, alone among the spectators, feel a twinge of regret at the sight:
‘Ah, if only I had some live Ephippigers!’ I cannot help saying, with not the least hope of seeing my wish realized.
‘Live Ephippigers?’ replies Émile. ‘Why, I have some perfectly fresh ones, caught this morning!’