V ° L 1920 XVI1 ] Beck, The Occult Senses in Birds. 59 



has been known and collected almost invariably in the female form. 

 Specimens taken are always fertilized. Apparently rare to a 

 mysterious degree the male wasp has seldom been collected or 

 observed. A well known entomologist conceived the plan of rear- 

 ing a female Pelreinus from the pupa. Properly caged the virgin 

 wasp was placed out of doors. Within a few hours the screens 

 of her cell were swarming with the mysterious male of her species. 

 These wasps may have been guided by some highly refined phase 

 of a well known sense, but it seems unlikely. 



Unfortunately research on these occult senses is difficult — often 

 impossible. Theories have to be based upon analogies and chance 

 observations. Under these conditions chance observation must 

 assume a somewhat greater significance than ordinarily is placed 

 upon it. 



On the basis of some impressive though fragmentary evidence 

 then we are justified in assuming — at least as an attractive and 

 perhaps stimulating working hypothesis — that intimately inter- 

 woven with the life histories of thousands of animal species of past 

 ages and many species of the present day there is an active sense 

 which may be called occult simply because it is hidden from the 

 experience and understanding of man. This occult sense, involv- 

 ing direction, has taken three phases as developed by the prime 

 necessities of life — food, mate and home in their relations to space. 

 The purely defensive or offensive elements that have determined 

 survival have evolved chiefly along physical and chemical lines in 

 animals and finally along mental lines in man. All phases of the 

 occult sense have long since been lost in the channels of life that 

 progressed toward civilized man; they exist only selectively in 

 animals below man to-day; but they are still an important factor 

 of existence in many life forms, as they have been a potent determi- 

 nant in past ages. 

 Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, Pa. 



