The examination of these acts of brigandage is not sufficient in view of my incorrigible habit of following every reply by another query, until the granite wall of the unknowable rises before me.  Although the Philanthus is skilled in forcing the bee to disgorge, in emptying the crop distended with honey, this diabolical skill cannot be merely an alimentary resource, above all when in common with other insects she has access to the refectory of the flowers.  I cannot regard her talents as inspired solely by the desire of a meal obtained by the labour of emptying the stomach of another insect.  Something must surely escape us here:  the real reason for emptying the stomach.  Perhaps a respectable reason is concealed by the horrors I have recorded.  What is it?

Every one will understand the vagueness which fills the observer’s mind in respect of such a question as this.  The reader has the right to be doubtful.  I will spare him my suspicions, my gropings for the truth, and the checks encountered in the search, and give him the results of my long inquiry.  Everything has its appropriate and harmonious reason.  I am too fully persuaded of this to believe that the Philanthus commits her profanation of corpses merely to satisfy her appetite.  What does the empty stomach mean?  May it not—­Yes!—­But, after all, who knows?  Well, let us follow up the scent.

The first care of the mothers is the welfare of the family.  So far all we know of the Philanthus concerns her talent for murder.  Let us consider her as a mother.  We have seen her hunt on her own account; let us now watch her hunt for her offspring, for the race.  Nothing is simpler than to distinguish between the two kinds of hunting.  When the insect wants a few good mouthfuls of honey and nothing else, she abandons the bee contemptuously when she has emptied its stomach.  It is so much valueless waste, which will shrivel where it lies and be dissected by ants.  If, on the other hand, she intends to place it in the larder as a provision for her larvae, she clasps it with her two intermediate legs, and, walking on the other four, drags it to and fro along the edge of the bell-glass in search of an exit so that she may fly off with her prey.  Having recognised the circular wall as impassable, she climbs its sides, now holding the bee in her mandibles by the antennae, clinging as she climbs to the vertical polished surface with all six feet.  She gains the summit of the glass, stays for a little while in the flask-like cavity of the terminal button or handle, returns to the ground, and resumes her circuit of the glass and her climbing, relinquishing the bee only after an obstinate attempt to escape with it.  The persistence with which the Philanthus retains her clasp upon the encumbering burden shows plainly that the game would go straight to the larder were the insect at liberty.

Those bees intended for the larvae are stung under the chin like the others; they are true corpses; they are manipulated, squeezed, exhausted of their honey, just as the others.  There is no difference in the method of capture nor in their after-treatment.