More Hunting Wasps 



system of nourishment so full of pit-falls: 

 fortuitous results are preposterous amid so 

 many complications. Either the feeding is 

 strictly methodical at the beginning, in con- 

 formity with the organic exigencies of the 

 prey devoured, and the Wasp established 

 her race; or else it was hesitating, without 

 determined rules, and the Wasp left no suc- 

 cessor. In the first case we behold innate 

 instinct; in the second acquired habit. 



A strange acquisition, truly! An acquisi- 

 tion presumed to be made by an impossible 

 creature; an acquisition supposed to develop 

 in no less impossible successors ! Though 

 the snow-ball, slowly rolling, at last becomes 

 an enormous sphere, it is still necessary that 

 the starting-point shall not have been nil. 

 The big ball implies the little ball, as small 

 as you please. Now, in harking back to the 

 origin of these acquired habits, if I interro- 

 gate the possibilities I obtain zero as the 

 only answer. If the animal does not know 

 its trade thoroughly, if it has to acquire 

 something, all the more if it has to acquire 

 everything, it perishes: that is inevitable; 

 without the little snow-ball the big snow- 

 ball cannot be rolled. If it has nothing to 

 acquire. If it knows all that it needs to know, 

 it flourishes and leaves descendants behind 

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