The Tachytes 



biography would be out of place in this chap- 

 ter. I will limit myself to mentioning its 

 method of constructing strong-boxes in or- 

 der to compare it with that of the Bembex 

 and above all with that of the Tachytes, a 

 consumer, like itself, of Praying Mantes. 

 From this parallel it seems to me to follow 

 that the conditions of life in which men see 

 to-day the origin of instincts — the type of 

 food, the surroundings amid which the 

 larval life is passed, the materials available 

 for a defensive wrapper and other factors 

 which the evolutionists are accustomed to 

 invoke — have no actual influence upon the 

 larva's industry. My three architects in 

 glued sand, even when all the conditions, 

 down to the nature of the provisions, are 

 the same, adopt different means to execute 

 an identical task. They are engineers who 

 have not graduated from the same school, 

 who have not been educated on the 

 same principles, though the lesson of things 

 is almost the same for all of them. 

 The workshop, the work, the provisions have 

 not determined the instinct. The instinct 

 comes first; it lays down laws instead of be- 

 ing subject to them. 



165 



