( 3) 
some of the ancestors of the Sphex were intelligent enough to 
notice the peculiar effects which followed upon stinging insects 
or caterpillars in the particular regions occupied by nerve- 
centres, and that, in consequence of being habitually guided 
by their intelligence to sting in these particular regions, their 
action became hereditary, ¢.e. instinctive. But if, in accord- 
ance with post-Darwinian theory, we relinquish this possible 
guidance by intelligence, and suppose that the whole of this 
wonderful instinct was built up by natural selection waiting 
for congenital (¢.e. fortuitous) variations in the direction of a 
propensity to sting, say, the nine nerve-centres of a caterpillar 
—then it surely becomes inconceivable that such an instinct 
should ever have been developed at all.” * 
Eimer is even more rash in his statements :—‘“This is one 
of the most marvellous instincts that exists ; since the wasp 
operates on various larve with nervous systems of various 
forms, she must effect the paralysis in various ways, and 
even apart from this, she makes a physiological experiment 
which is far in advance of the knowledge of man. ... It 
may be suggested that the wasp only paralyzed the larve in 
order to carry them more easily; but even if this were the 
ease, she must, since she now invariably acts in this way, 
have drawn a conclusion by deductive reasoning. In this 
ease it is absolutely impossible that the animal has arrived 
at its habit otherwise than by reflection upon the facts of 
experience.” 
Mr. and Mrs. Peckham make the following comment upon 
this wild passage from Eimer :—“ One can hardly be expected 
to take such statements seriously, since it is certain that the 
writer has no knowledge of the life-histories of these insects.”’ } 
Ill. Thirdly, there are those who believe that the instincts 
in question are to be explained by the operation of natural selec- 
tion upon hereditary nervous mechanisms, who believe that 
the Lamarckian principle of the hereditary transmission of 
education has never come into the history at any stage. 
Fabre’s observations are quite consistent with this view; in 
* Nature,” vol. xxxix, 1888, p. 77. 
+ ‘*The Instincts and Habits of the Solitary Wasps,” by George W. 
and Elizabeth G. Peckham, Madison, Wis., 1898, p. 22). 
