FIELD AND STUDY 



"her forefeet violently upon the beetle's back, as 

 if to force open some ventral joint," then curve her 

 body around under the insect's belly and thrust 

 her sting into a minute opening between its first 

 and second pair of legs! 



O strange and baffling Nature! Truly thy ways 

 are not as our ways. But Nature keeps the game 

 of life going, which seems her main purpose, making 

 it as various and picturesque as possible. She di- 

 vides her favors pretty equally, but not quite; she 

 leaves enough difference up or down to keep the 

 currents going. She is just as much interested in the 

 weevil as in the wasp, and though she has armed 

 the wasp to slay the weevil, she has made the weevil 

 more prolific, and given it life on easier terms. The 

 hunted usually has life on easier terms than the 

 hunter a wider choice of food and of territory, and 

 other compensations. It is rarely that a rat or a chip- 

 munk or a rabbit can escape the weasel when the 

 latter gets on its trail, and yet there are hundreds 

 of rats and chipmunks and rabbits to one weasel. 

 Some unknown factor operates to keep the latter 

 in check. 



Our prudence, our economy, our selection, our 

 short cuts, find no parallel in Nature's works; and 

 for the reason that her special ends are all inside of 

 general or universal ends: so careless of the indi- 

 vidual, as Tennyson says, and so careful of the type. 

 Behold how Nature equips one animal to prey upon 

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