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364 ENTOMOLOGY 
made near the spot upon which the prey of the wasp, whatever 
it may be, is deposited temporarily.” 
If we take, as one criterion of intelligence, the power to 
choose between alternatives, then insects are more intelligent 
than is generally admitted. The control of locomotion, the 
selection of prey, and the avoidance of enemies, as results of 
experience, indicate powers of discrimination. The power of 
intercommunication, conceded to exist among the social Hy- 
menoptera, implies some degree of intelligence. 
If instinct is blind, or mechanical, with no adjustment of 
means to ends, then a pronounced individuality of action must 
as in the case of the 
signify something more than instinct 
Ammophila. In regard to a female Pompilus scelestus, which 
had dragged a large spider nearly to her nest, the Peckhams 
observe: “ Presently she went to look at her nest and seemed 
to be struck with a thought that had already occurred to us— 
that it was decidedly too small to hold the spider. Back she 
went for another survey of her bulky victim, measured it with 
her eye, without touching it, drew her conclusions, and at once 
returned to the nest and began to make it larger. We have 
several times seen wasps enlarge their holes when a trial had 
demonstrated that the spider would not go in, but this seemed 
a remarkably intelligent use of the comparative faculty.” 
From the standpoint of pure instinct, indeed, much of the 
behavior of the solitary wasps is inexplicable; while the actions 
of the social Hymenoptera have led some of the most critical 
students to ascribe intelligence to these insects. The activities 
of the harvesting ants, the military or the slave-holding species, 
are of such a nature that the possibility of education by experi- 
ence and instruction is strong, to say the least. In fact, Forel 
has maintained that a young ant is actually trained to its 
domestic duties by its older companions. Miss Enteman, on 
the contrary, says: “ Wasps do not imitate one another.  In- 
stinct and individual experience account sufhciently for their 
powers, and their apparent cooperation is due entirely to the 
accident of their being born in the same nest.”’ She finds that 
