The Wisdom of Instinct 



times as long as the insect that was untouched. 

 What seemed as though it should be a cause 

 of death was really a cause of life. 



However paradoxical it may seem at first 

 sight, this result is exceedingly simple. When 

 untouched, the insect exerts itself and conse- 

 quently uses up its reserves. When para- 

 lysed, it has merely the feeble, internal move- 

 ments which are inseparable from any 

 organism; and its substance is economized in 

 proportion to the weakness of the action dis- 

 played. In the first case, the animal machine 

 is at work and wears itself out; in the second, 

 it is at rest and saves itself. There being no 

 nourishment now to repair the waste, the 

 moving insect spends its nutritive reserves in 

 four days and dies; the motionless insect does 

 not spend them and lives for eighteen days. 

 Life is a continual dissolution, the physiolo- 

 gists tell us; and the Sphex' victims give us 

 the neatest possible demonstration of the fact. 



One remark more. Fresh food is abso- 

 lutely necessary for the Wasp's larvae. If 

 the prey were warehoused in the burrow in- 

 tact, in four or five days it would be a corpse 

 abandoned to corruption; and the scarce- 

 hatched grub would find nothing to live upon 

 but a putrid mass. Pricked with the sting, 

 185 



