264 THE CASE AGAINST EVOLUTION 



speculation, and she was lost. The first teacher would also 

 have been the last, with no disciples to take up her art and 

 perfect it." ("Bramble Bees," p. 354.) 



Another hunting wasp, the Hairy Ammophila, subdues a 

 large caterpillar into a state of coma by pricking with its 

 sting nine of the ventral ganglia, while it spares the cervical 

 ganglion, merely compressing the latter with its mandibles, 

 so as not to destroy life altogether. This nice discrimination 

 rules out Loeb's hypothesis of a so-called "chemotaxis." As a 

 result of this elaborate surgical operation, the power of move- 

 ment is suppressed in every segment, and the tiny larva of the 

 wasp emerging from the egg laid on the ventral surface of the 

 caterpillar can devour this huge living, but motionless, victim in 

 peace and safety. Dead meat would not agree with the larva, 

 and any movement of the caterpillar would be fatal to the deli- 

 cate grub. To eliminate these contingencies, the Wasp's surgery 

 must be perfect from the very outset. "There is," says Fabre, 

 "no via media, no half success. Either the caterpillar is 

 treated according to rule and the Wasp and its family is 

 perpetuated ; or else the victim is only partially paralyzed and 

 the Wasp's offspring dies in the egg. Yielding to the inex- 

 orable logic of things, we will have to admit that the first 

 Hairy Ammophila, after capturing a Grey Worm to feed her 

 larva, operated on the patient by the exact method in use 

 today." ("The Hunting Wasps," pp. 403, 404.) 



Certain meticulous critics of our day cite the fact of the 

 diffusion of the poison as indicating that the surgery of the 

 hunting wasps need not be so perfectly accommodated to the 

 nervous system of their prey, and they attempt in this 

 way to discredit Fabre as having failed to take the 

 occurrence of diffusion into account. A careful reading of 

 his works, however, will serve to vindicate him in this 

 respect. In a chapter on the poison of the bee, for in- 

 stance, we read: "The local effect is diffused. This diffusion, 

 which might well take place in the victims of the predatory 

 insects, plays no part in the latter's method of operation. The 



