More Hunting Wasps 



everything in the way of insect game, at 

 hap-hazard; and each time the larva, whose 

 tastes alone had to be consulted, was satisfied 

 with the food supplied, as it is to-day in the 

 refectory provisioned by my care. 



Every attempt led to the invention of a 

 new dish, an important event, according to 

 the masters, an inestimable resource for the 

 family, who were thereby delivered from the 

 menace of death and enabled to thrive over 

 large areas whence the absence or rarity of 

 a uniform game would have excluded it. 

 And, after making use of a host of different 

 viands in order to attain the culinary variety 

 which is to-day adopted by the whole of the 

 Sphex nation, lo and behold, each species 

 confines itself to a single sort of game, out- 

 side which every specimen is obstinately re- 

 fused, not at table, of course, but in the hunt- 

 ing-field! By your experiments, from age 

 to age, to have discovered variety in diet; 

 to have practised it, to the great advantage 

 of your race, and to end up with uniformity, 

 the cause of decadence; to have known the 

 excellent and to repudiate it for the mid- 

 dling: oh, my Sphex-wasps, it would be stu- 

 pid if the theory of evolution were correct! 



To avoid insulting you and also from re- 

 spect for common sense, I prefer therefore 



