442 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1920. 



In insect life, however, there is evidence which if not conclusive 

 is strongly contributive. Thus a common wasp, Pelecinus, has been 

 known and collected almost invariably in the female form. Speci- 

 mens taken are always fertilized. Apparently rare to a mysterious 

 degree, the male wasp has seldom been collected or observed. A well- 

 known entomologist conceived the plan of rearing a female Pelecinus 

 from the pupa. Properly caged the virgin wasp was placed out of 

 doors. Within a few hours the screens of her cell were swarming 

 with the mysterious male of her species. These wasps may have 

 been guided by some highly refined phase of a well-known sense, but 

 it seems unlikely. 



Unfortunately research on these occult senses is difficult — often 

 impossible. Theories have to be based upon analogies and chance 

 observations. Under these conditions chance observation must as- 

 sume a somewhat greater significance than ordinarily is placed 

 upon it. 



On the basis of some impressive though fragmentary evidence then 

 we are justified in assuming — at least as an attractive and perhaps 

 stimulating working hypothesis — that intimately interwoven with 

 the life histories of thousands of animal species of past ages and 

 many species of the present day there is an active sense which may 

 be called occult simply because it is hidden from the experience and 

 understanding of man. This occult sense, involving direction, has 

 taken three phases as developed by the prime necessities of life — food, 

 mate, and home in their relations to space. The purely defensive or 

 offensive elements that have determined survival have evolved chiefly 

 along physical and chemical lines in animals and finally along men- 

 tal lines in man. All phases of the occult sense have long since been 

 lost in the channels of life that progressed toward civilized man; 

 they exist only selectively in animals below man to-day; but they 

 are still an important factor of existence in many life forms, as they 

 have been a potent determinant in past ages. 



