154 CREATIVE EVOLUTION CHAP. 



rolled into one. But what shall we say of the little 

 beetle, the Sitaris, whose story is so often quoted ? 

 This insect lays its eggs at the entrance of the under 

 ground passages dug by a kind of bee, the Anthophora. 

 Its larva, after long waiting, springs upon the male 

 Anthophora as it goes out of the passage, clings to 

 it, and remains attached until the &quot; nuptial flight,&quot; 

 when it seizes the opportunity to pass from the male 

 to the female, and quietly waits until it lays its eggs. 

 It then leaps on the egg, which serves as a support 

 for it in the honey, devours the egg in a few days, 

 and, resting on the shell, undergoes its first meta 

 morphosis. Organized now to float on the honey, 

 it consumes this provision of nourishment, and be 

 comes a nymph, then a perfect insect. Everything 

 happens as if the larva of the Sitaris, from the 

 moment it was hatched, knew that the male Antho 

 phora would first emerge from the passage ; that the 

 nuptial flight would give it the means of conveying 

 itself to the female, who wouH take it to a store of 

 honey sufficient to feed it after its transformation ; 

 that, until this transformation, it could gradually 

 eat the egg of the Anthophora, in such a way that 

 it could at the same time feed itself, maintain itself 

 at the surface of the honey, and also suppress the 

 rival that otherwise would have come out of the egg. 

 And equally all this happens as if the Sitaris itself 

 knew that its larva would know all these things. 

 The knowledge, if knowledge there be, is only im 

 plicit. It is reflected outwardly in exact movements 

 instead of being reflected inwardly in consciousness. 

 It is none the less true that the behaviour of the insect 

 involves, or rather evolves, the idea of definite things 

 existing or being produced in definite points of space 



