The Hunting Wasps 



to the animal's offspring, was the first to 

 prompt it. Let us look into the thing more 

 closely. If I understand aright, we must 

 suppose some Ammophila, in a very remote 

 past, to have accidentally injured her cater- 

 pillar's nervous centres; to have found her- 

 self the gainer by this operation, both as 

 regards herself, in being released from a 

 struggle not unattended with danger, and as 

 regards her larva, thus supplied with fresh, 

 living and yet harmless victuals; and con- 

 sequently to have endowed her offspring, by 

 heredity, with a natural tendency to repeat 

 the advantageous device. The maternal 

 legacy did not benefit all the descendants 

 equally: some were poor hands at the new- 

 born art of the stiletto; others were adepts. 

 Then came the struggle for existence, the 

 hateful ^•^ victisf The weak went under, 

 the strong flourished; and, as age succeeded 

 age, selection by vital competition changed 

 the fleeting impression of the start into a 

 deep-rooted, ineffaceable impression, exem- 

 plified in the masterly instinct which we ad- 

 mire in the Wasp to-day. 



Well, I avow, in all sincerity, this is ask- 

 ing a little too much of chance. When the 

 Ammophila first found herself in the pre- 

 400 



