The reason seemed a good one; and I let it go at that.
In the end, another idea occurred to me and made me doubt whether my rebuffs were always due to clumsy accidents.

The Eumenes' cells are crammed with game: there are ten caterpillars in the cell of Eumenes Amedei and fifteen in that of Eumenes pomiformis.

These caterpillars, stabbed no doubt, but in a manner unknown to me, are not entirely motionless.

The mandibles seize upon what is presented to them, the body buckles and unbuckles, the hinder half lashes out briskly when stirred with the point of a needle.

At what spot is the egg laid amid that swarming mass, where thirty mandibles can make a hole in it, where a hundred and twenty pairs of legs can tear it?
When the victuals consist of a single head of game, these perils do not exist; and the egg is laid on the victim not at hazard, but upon a judiciously chosen spot.