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.