650 Reflexes, Instincts, and Intelligence 



When this number of journeys has been made, — when the Sphex has done 

 all that is possible to store the captured prey, — her work is done, and the 

 cell is closed, whether completely provisioned or not. Nature has endowed 

 her with only those faculties called for under ordinary circumstances by the 

 interests of the larva, and these blind faculties, unmdiofied by experience, 

 being sufficient for the preservation of the race, the animal cannot go farther. 



"I end then as I began: instinct knows everything in the unchanging 

 paths laid out for it; beyond them it is entirely ignorant. The sublime 

 inspirations of science, the astonishing inconsistencies of stupidity, are both 

 its portion, according as the creature acts under normal conditions or under 

 accidental ones." 



Now for the other side. I quote from the concluding chapter in the 

 Pcckhams' book on the Solitary Wasps: 



"Our study of the activities of wasps has satisfied us that it is imprac- 

 ticable to classify them in any simple way. The old notion that the acts 

 of bees, wasps, and ants were all varying forms of instinct is no longer ten- 

 able and must give way to a more philosophical view. It would appear to 

 be quite certain that there are not only instinctive acts but acts of intelligence 

 as well, and a third variety also — acts that are probably due to imitation, 

 although whether much or little intelligence accompanies this imitation, is 

 admittedly difficult to determine. Again, acts that are instinctive in one 

 species may be intelligent in another, and we may even assert that there is 

 a considerable variation in the amount of intelligence displayed by different 

 individuals of the same species. We have met with such diflBculty in our 

 attempt to arrange the activities of wasps in different groups that we are 

 forced to the conclusion that any scheme of classification is merely a con- 

 venience, useful for purposes of study or generalization, but not to be taken 

 for an absolutely true expression of all the facts. This kind of perplexity 

 is well understood and allowed for in all morphological work, but it has 

 never been fully realized in the study of habits. The explanation is not far 

 to seek. The habits of but few animals have been studied in sufficient 

 detail to bring out the evidence that there is as much variation on the psy- 

 chological as on the morphological side." 



In a recent account of observations made on twenty-eight species of 

 solitary wasps in Texas, Carl Hartman also takes strong ground for the 

 variability of instincts. He has in his own mind, as a result of his long 

 series of observations, no doubt of this variability. And he notes also the 

 interesting point that this "variability in mental traits and dispositions as 

 reflected in the wasps' actions seems to be proportionate to the physical 

 variability. At any rate, Bembex belfrcegi, the species of Bembidula, and 

 Microhembex monodonta, for example, are all very variable species in size 

 and coloration as well as in the demeanor of different individuals." 



