322 Organic Natures Riddle 



protect her eggs, excavates, in some piece of wood, a 

 series of chambers, in special order, with a view to a pecuHar 

 mode of exit for her young : but the young mother can have 

 no conscious knowledge of the series of actions subsequently 

 to ensue. The female of the wasp sphex affords another 

 well-known but very remarkable example of a complex in- 

 stinct closely related to that already mentioned in the case 

 of the polecat. The female wasp has to provide fresh, living 

 animal food for her progeny, which, when it quits the ^'^^, quits 

 it in the form of an almost helpless grub, utterly unable to 

 catch, retain, or kill an active, struggling prey. Accordingly 

 the mother insect has not only to provide and place beside 

 her eggs suitable living prey, but so to treat it that it may 

 be a helpless, unresisting victim. That victim may be a 

 caterpillar, or it may be a great, powerful grasshopper, 

 or even that most fierce, active, and rapacious of insect 

 tyrants, a fell and venomous spider. Whichever it may 

 be, the wasp adroitly stings it at the spot which induces, 

 or in the several spots which induce, complete paralysis 

 as to motion, let us hope as to sensation also. This done, 

 the wasp entombs the helpless being with its o^vn ^g^, and 

 leaves it for the support of the future grub. Another species 

 feeds her young one from time to time with fresh food, visit- 

 ing at suitable intervals the nest she has made and carefully 

 covered and concealed with earth, which she removes and 

 replaces, as far as necessary, at each visit. If the opening 

 be made ready for her, this, instead of helping her to get 

 at her young, altogether puzzles her, and she no longer 

 seems to recognise her brood, thus showing how thoroughly 

 * instinctive' her proceedings are. Other instances of instinct, 

 such as those of the stag-beetle and emperor moth, I will 

 refer to presently. But most wonderful, perhaps, of all are 

 the instincts of social insects, such as bees, where there are 

 not only males and females, but a large population of prac- 



