In order to get the bee into the proper position for the final stroke, she swings the poor creature round and back again with the careless roughness of a child dandling a doll.

Her pose is magnificent, solidly based upon her sustaining tripod, the two posterior thighs and the end of the wings, she flexes the abdomen forwards and upwards, and, as before, stings the bee in the upper part of the thorax.

The originality of her pose at the moment of striking surpasses anything I have ever witnessed.
The love of knowledge in matters of natural history is not without its cruelties.

To make absolutely certain of the point attained by the sting, and to inform myself completely concerning this horrible talent for murder, I have provoked I dare not confess how many assassinations in captivity.

Without a single exception, the bee has always been stung in the throat.