More Hunting Wasps 



fresh Insect-flesh, as the tastes of their cousins 

 many times removed prove to this day. 

 This matriarch of the Sphex clan bore within 

 herself the best chances of assuring victory 

 to her offspring in that pitiless fight for exist- 

 ence which eliminates the weakly and In- 

 capable and allows none but the strong and 

 industrious to survive; she possessed an apti- 

 tude of great value which atavism could not 

 fail to hand down and which her descendants, 

 who are greatly interested in preserving this 

 magnificent inheritance, must have perma- 

 nently adopted and even accentuated from 

 one generation to the next, from one branch, 

 one offshoot, to another. 



Instead of this unscrupulously omnivorous 

 race, levying booty upon every kind of game, 

 to its very great advantage, what do we see 

 to-day? Each Sphex is stupidly limited to 

 an unvarying diet; she hunts only one kind 

 of prey, though her larva accepts them all. 

 One will have nothing but the Ephipplger 

 and must have a female at that; another will 

 have nothing but the Cricket. This one 

 hunts the Locust and nothing else; that one 

 the Mantis and the Empusa. Yet another 

 is addicted to the Grey Worm and another to 

 the Looper. 



Fools! How great was your mistake In 



2IO 



