More Hunting Wasps 



least the Wasp, still on the wing, tugs at her, 

 tugging again and again, to overcome the 

 cause of the hitch and release the spoil. 

 The hauling-method, a continuation of the 

 flight, comes to nothing; and no other is at- 

 tempted. At last the insect wearies and 

 leaves the Mantis hanging to the Silene. 



Now or never was the moment for the 

 intervention of that tiny glimmer of reason 

 which Darwin so generously grants to ani- 

 mals. Do not, if you please, confound rea- 

 son with intelligence, as people are too prone 

 to do. I deny the one; and the other is in- 

 contestable, within very modest limits. It 

 was, I said, the moment to reason a little, 

 to discover the cause of the hitch and to at- 

 tack the difficulty at its source. For the 

 Tachytes the matter was of the simplest. 

 She had but to grab the body by the skin 

 of the abdomen immediately above the spot 

 caught by the glue and to pull it towards her, 

 instead of persevering in her flight without 

 releasing the neck. Simple though this me- 

 chanical problem was, the insect was unable 

 to solve it, because she was not able to trace 

 the effect back to the cause, because she did 

 not even suspect that the stoppage had a 

 cause. 



Ants doting on sugar and accustomed to 

 14S 



