Packard.] EELATIOXS OF IXSECTS TO MAX. 79 



My own observations on finother wasp {Ochjnerns aIbo2JIia- 

 leratus)^ which makes its round cells of clay, placing them for 

 safety in the 1 ose nest of the American Tent Caterpillar, 

 have shown me that Fabre's account must be correct. On 

 opening these cells, they were found to be filled with minute 

 caterpillars, which were in various stages of growth between 

 the fully formed caterpillar and the chrysalis. The}' were 

 alive, but benumbed, and in some cases with life enough to 

 finish their transformations into the chrysalis state. Here 

 they were waiting patiently each for his turn to be devoured 

 by the young wasp. What a marvellous instinct on the part 

 of the wasp, and how much more wonderful when we remem- 

 ber that this is a habit of but certain groups of wasps, and 

 that it must have been acquired by fig. 60. 



them from some ancestor which had to 

 find out for itself the secret of sting. 

 ing its victim so as to simply paralyze 

 and not kill outright the luckless 

 subject of the experiment. Again, 

 was the discovery made by accident, 

 or did our ancestral wasp go about it 

 like a philosopher, and after conducting a series of experi- 

 ments, guided by the "scientific use of the imaginatioti" 

 alight finally upon just the weak si)ot in its victim's harness 

 in which to insert its sting? This thought may be consid- 

 ered as twaddle by some, but in all seriousness Ave would say 

 that nature must have had that insect in training. Anj' one 

 who has observed a wasp building its nest, or a Chr3'sis 

 wasp (Fig. 60) exploring the nail holes in a post with 

 its inquisitive sting, combining the terrible qualities of a 

 poi.soned dagger with the delicate touch of a finger, and 

 then imagines the series of deductions following each trial 

 of the sting, the momentous result attending the exploita- 

 tion to the future weal of the Chrysis family, and the ulti- 

 mate good to the species — how can he say that there we 



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