330 Organic Nature s Riddle 



of the duck, which feigns to have an injured wing in order 

 to entice a dog away from the pursuit of her duckUngs. Is 

 it conceivable that such an act was first done by pure 

 accident, and that the descendants of her who so acted, 

 having inherited the tendency, have been alone selected 

 and preserved ? Again, there is the case of the wasp sphex, 

 which stings spiders, caterpillars, and grasshoppers exactly 

 in the spot, or spots, where their nervous ganglia lie, and 

 so paralyses them. Even the strongest advocate of the 

 intelligence of insects would not affirm that the mother 

 sphex has a knowledge of the comparative anatomy of the 

 nervous system of these very diversely formed insects. 

 According to the doctrine of natural selection, either an 

 ancestral wasp must have accidentally stung them each in 

 the right places, and so our sphex of to-day is the naturally 

 selected descendant of a line of insects which inherited this 

 lucky tendency to sting different insects differently, but 

 always in the exact situation of their nervous gangUa; or 

 else the young, of the ancestral sphex originally fed on dead 

 food, but the offspring of some individuals who happened 

 to sting their prey so as to paralyse but not kill it were 

 better nourished, and so the habit grew. But the incredible 

 supposition that the ancestor should accidentally have 

 acquired the habit of stinging different insects differently, 

 but always in the right spot, is not eliminated by the latter 

 hypothesis. 



There is, again, the case of neuter insects and the highly 

 complex instincts of insects living in communities, such as 

 bees, ants, and termites. The Darwinian theory has the 

 great advantage of only needing for its support the suggestion 

 of some possible utility in each case ; and as all structures 

 and fLinctions in nature have their utility, the task is not 

 a difficult one for an ingenious, patient, and accomplished 

 thinker. Yet Mr. Darwin, with all his ingenuity, patience. 



