Lo32 ) 
lifetime, and thus are always “prior to individual experience.” * 
The behaviour which leads to the production of an elaborate 
cocoon or the burial of a larva in its earthen cell is clearly 
instinctive, and the most convincing evidence would be re- 
quired—evidence which it is needless to say is entirely lacking 
—in order to prove that certain insects which perform an act 
no more elaborate many times in their lives are guided by 
anything except the compulsion of a “nervous system built 
through heredity.” | If the cocoon-making instinct has evolved 
through selection, the comb-making instinct of the social 
Hymenoptera has surely arisen in the same way and not 
through the operation of an entirely different set of causes. 
As a matter of fact I have witnessed the perfection of comb- 
building “prior to individual experience” and under con- 
ditions which prevented the worker from profiting by the 
experience of others. I have seen “the worker of a species of 
Vespa freshly emerged from the pupa, and the sole perfect 
insect upon the young comb (the queen-mother having been 
previously killed), immediately seize upon the broken material 
of the comb and begin accurately and with exact precision to 
build up the thin and delicate sides of injured cells containing 
the living larvee.” } 
The strongest of all arguments against Lamarckian evolu- 
tion was advanced nearly fifty years ago by Darwin in the 
first edition of the “ Origin of Species” ; and here too we see 
that demonstrative evidence was supplied to the greatest of all 
naturalists by reflection upon the insect world, and of the part 
of it which we are now considering. ‘ No amount of exercise, 
or habit, or volition,” he says, speaking of ants, “in the utterly 
sterile members of a community could possibly have affected 
the structure or instincts of the fertile members, which alone 
leave descendants. Jam surprised that no one has advanced 
this demonstrative case of neuter insects against the well- 
known doctrine of Lamarck.” § 
* For instance, the cocoon-making instinct, already alluded to (see 
pp. exx-exxili), Weismann has directed particular attention to this 
argument against a Lamarckian interpretation (‘‘ The Evolution Theory,” 
London, 1904, pp. 155 et seqq.). 
+ ‘‘Nature,” vol. lxv, 1901, p. 51, The passage has been slightly modified, 
Rae se tOOs § ‘‘ The Origin of Species,” London, 1859, p. 242. 
