194 ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE. 



Mr. Henry Cecil writes as follows (Nature, vol. 

 xviii., p. 311) : 



I was sitting one summer's afternoon at an open window 

 (my bedroom) looking into a garden, when I was surprised to 

 observe a large and rare species of spider run across the window- 

 sill in a crouching attitude. It struck me the spider was evi- 

 dently alarmed, or it would not have so fearlessly approached 

 me. It hastened to conceal itself under the projecting ledge of 

 the window-sill inside the room, and had hardly done so when 

 a very fine large hunting wasp buzzed in at the open window 

 and flew about the room, etddently in search of something. 

 Finding nothing, the wasp returned to the open window and 

 settled on the window-sill, running backwards and forwards as 

 a dog does when looking or searching for a lost scent. It soon 

 alighted on the track of the poor spider, and in a moment it 

 discovered its hiding-place, darted down on it, and no doubt 

 inflicted a wound with its sting. The spider rushed off again, 

 and this time took refuge under the bed, trying to conceal itself 

 under the framework or planks which supported the mattress. 

 The same scene occurred here; the wasp now appeared to follow 

 the spider by sight, but ran backwards and forwards in large 

 circles like a hound. The moment the trail of the spider was 

 found the wasp followed all the turns it had made till it came 

 on it again. The poor spider was chas?d from hiding-place to 

 hiding-place, out of the bedroom, across a passage, and into the 

 middle of another large room, where it finally succumbed to the 

 repeated stings inflicted by the wasp. Rolling itself up into a 

 ball the wasp then took possession of its prey, and after ascer- 

 taining it could make no resistance, tucked it up under its 

 very long Jtind legs, just as a hawk or eagle carries off its quarry, 

 when I interposed and secured both for my collection. 



Mr. Belt, in his work already frequently quoted, 

 gives the following account of a struggle which not un- 

 frequently occurs between wasps and ants for the sweet 

 secretion of ' frog-hoppers : '- 



Similarly as, on the savannahs, I had observed a wasp at- 

 tending the honey -glands of the bull's-horn acacia along with 

 the ants ; so at Santo Domingo another wasp, belonging to quite 

 a different genus (Nectarina), attended some of the clusters of 

 frog-hoppers', and for the possession of others a constant skir- 

 mishing was going on. The wasp stroked the young hoppers, 

 and sipped up the honey when it was exuded, just like the ants. 



