The Problem of the Scoliae 



unless the others were surmounted as suc- 

 cessfully. Success, then, is contingent upon 

 a series of conditions, each one of which 

 offers almost no chance of victory, so that 

 the fulfilment of them all becomes a mathe- 

 matical absurdity if we are to invoke acci- 

 dent alone. 



And, in the first place, how was it that the 

 Scolia of antiquity, having to provide rations 

 for her carnivorous family, adopted for her 

 prey only those larvae which, owing to the 

 concentration of their nervous systems, form 

 so remarkable and so rare an exception in 

 the insect order? What chance would 

 hazard offer her of obtaining this prey, the 

 most suitable of all because the most vulner- 

 able ? The chance represented by unity com- 

 pared with the indefinite number of ento- 

 mological species. The odds are as one to 

 immensity. 



Let us continue. The larva of the Scara- 

 bseid is snapped up underground, for the 

 first time. The victim protests, defends it- 

 self after its fashion, coils itself up and pre- 

 sents to the sting on every side a surface 

 on which a wound entails no serious danger. 

 And yet the Wasp, an absolute novice, has 

 to select, for the thrust of its poisoned 

 weapon, one single point, narrowly restricted 

 "7 



