Here is a fact which encourages me in this belief.  I had placed under the bell-glass at the same time four bees and as many Eristales, in order to judge of the entomological knowledge of Philanthus as exemplified in the distinction of species.  Reciprocal quarrels broke out among the heterogeneous group.  Suddenly, in the midst of the tumult, the killer is killed.  Who has struck the blow?  Certainly not the turbulent but pacific Eristales; it was one of the bees, which by chance had thrust truly in the mellay.  When and how?  I do not know.  This accident is unique in my experience; but it throws a light upon the question.  The bee is capable of withstanding its adversary; it can, with a thrust of its envenomed needle, kill the would-be killer.  That it does not defend itself more skilfully when it falls into the hands of its enemy is due to ignorance of fencing, not to the weakness of the arm.  And here again arises, more insistently than before, the question I asked but now:  how is it that the Philanthus has learned for purposes of attack what the bee has not learned for purposes of defence.  To this difficulty I see only one reply:  the one knows without having learned and the other does not know, being incapable of learning.

Let us now examine the motives which induce the Philanthus to kill its bee instead of paralysing it.  The murder once committed, it does not release its victim for a moment, but holding it tightly clasped with its six legs pressed against its body, it commences to ravage the corpse.  I see it with the utmost brutality rooting with its mandibles in the articulation of the neck, and often also in the more ample articulation of the corselet, behind the first pair of legs; perfectly aware of the fine membrane in that part, although it does not take advantage of the fact when employing its sting, although this vulnerable point is the more accessible of the two breaches in the bee’s armour.  I see it squeezing the bee’s stomach, compressing it with its own abdomen, crushing it as in a vice.  The brutality of this manipulation is striking; it shows that there is no more need of care and skill.  The bee is a corpse, and a little extra pushing and squeezing will not deteriorate its quality as food, provided there is no effusion of blood; and however rough the treatment, I have never been able to discover the slightest wound.

These various manipulations, above all the compression of the throat, lead to the desired result:  the honey in the stomach of the bee ascends to the mouth.  I see the drops of honey welling out, lapped up by the glutton as soon as they appear.  The bandit greedily takes in its mouth the extended and sugared tongue of the dead insect; then once more it presses the neck and the thorax, and once more applies the pressure of its abdomen to the honey-sac of the bee.  The honey oozes forth and is instantly licked up.  This odious meal at the expense of the corpse is taken in a truly sybaritic attitude:  the Philanthus