More Hunting Wasps 



strange Acorn Balaninus, the only one among 

 her victims that wears a long pipe-stem. I 

 leave to evolutionism, atavism and other 

 transcendental " isms " the honour and also 

 the risk of explaining what I humbly recog- 

 nize as being too far beyond my grasp. Be- 

 cause the son of the bird-catcher who imi- 

 tates the call of his victims has been fed on 

 roast Robins, Linnets and Chaffinches, shall 

 we hastily conclude that this education 

 through the stomach will enable him later, 

 without other initiation than that of the spit, 

 to know his way about the ornithological 

 groups and to avoid confusing them when his 

 turn comes to set his limed twigs ? Will the 

 digesting of a ragout of little birds, however 

 often repeated by him or his ascendants, suf- 

 fice to make him a finished bird-catcher? 

 The Cerceris has eaten Weevil; her ancestors 

 have all eaten Weevil, religiously. If you 

 see in this the reason that makes the Wasp 

 a Weevil-expert endowed with a perspicacity 

 unrivalled save by that of a professional en- 

 tomologist, why should you refuse to admit 

 that the same consequences would follow in 

 the bird-catcher's family? 



I hasten to abandon these insoluble prob- 

 lems in order to attack the question of pro- 

 visions from another point of view. Every 

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