oscillation, always behind the quarry. It is as who should say the quick
movement of a pendulum swinging without a wire to hang from. The Mantis,
however, lifts herself boldly upon her four hind-legs; she raises the fore-
part of her body, opens, closes and again opens her shears and presents
them threateningly at the enemy; using a privilege which no other insect
shares, she turns her head this way and that, as we do when we look over
our shoulders; she faces her assailant, ready to strike a return blow
wheresoever the attack may come. It is the first time that I have witnessed
such defensive daring. What will be the outcome of it all?

The Wasp continues to oscillate behind the Mantis, in order to avoid the
formidable grappling-engine; then, suddenly, when she judges that the other
is baffled by the rapidity of her manoeuvres, she hurls herself upon the
insect's back, seizes its neck with her mandibles, winds her legs round its
thorax and hastily delivers a first thrust of the sting, to the front, at
the root of the lethal legs. Complete success! The deadly shears fall
powerless. The operator then lets herself slip as she might slide down a
pole, retreats along the Mantis' back and, going a trifle lower, less than
a finger's breadth, she stops and paralyses, this time without hurrying
herself, the two pairs of hind-legs. It is done: the patient lies
motionless; only the tarsi quiver, twitching in their last convulsions. The
sacrificer brushes her wings for a moment and polishes her antennae by
passing them through her mouth, an habitual sign of tranquillity returning
after the emotions of the conflict; she seizes the game by the neck, takes
it in her legs and flies away with it.

What do you say to it all? Do not the scientist's theory and the insect's
practice agree most admirably? Has not the animal accomplished to
perfection what anatomy and physiology enabled us to foretell? Instinct, a
gratuitous attribute, an unconscious inspiration, rivals knowledge, that