The Ignorance of Instinct 



and over again, always with the same anxious 

 haste. 



These visits are sometimes followed by 

 grievous accidents. The victim, rashly aban- 

 doned on hilly ground, rolls to the bottom 

 of the slope; and the Sphex on her re- 

 turn, no longer finding it where she left it, 

 is obliged to seek for it, sometimes fruit- 

 lessly. If she find it, she must renew a toil- 

 some climb, which does not prevent her from 

 once more abandoning her booty on the 

 same unlucky declivity. Of these repeated 

 visits to the mouth of the shaft, the first can 

 be very logically explained. The Wasp, be- 

 fore arriving with her heavy burden, enquires 

 whether the entrance to the home be really 

 clear, whether nothing will hinder her from 

 bringing in her game. But, once this first 

 reconnaissance is made, what can be the use 

 of the rest, following one after the other, at 

 close intervals? Is the Sphex so volatile in 

 her ideas that she forgets the visit which she 

 has just paid and runs afresh to the burrow 

 a moment later, only to forget this new in- 

 spection also and to start doing the same 

 thing over and over again? That would be 

 a memory with very fleeting recollections, 

 whence the impression vanished almost as 

 205 



