More Hunting Wasps 



To create a species is magnificent in the- 

 ory, so that we find ourselves regretting that 

 the experimenter is not able to continue the 

 attempt. But, once the Ammophila has 

 flown out of the laboratory to slake her 

 thirst at the flowers in the neighbourhood, 

 just try to find her again and induce her to 

 entrust you with her eggs, which you would 

 rear In the refectory, to Increase the taste 

 for Spiders from generation to generation! 

 Merely to dream of it were madness. Shall 

 we, in our helplessness, admit ourselves 

 beaten by the evolutionary effects of diet? 

 Not a bit of it !• One experiment — and you 

 could not wish for a more decisive — is con- 

 tinually In progress, apart from all artifices, 

 on an enormous scale. It is brought to our 

 notice by the parasites. 



They must, we are told, have acquired the 

 habit of living on others In order to save 

 themselves work and to lead an easier life. 

 The poor wretches have made a sorry blun- 

 der. Their Hfe is of the hardest. If a 

 few establish themselves comfortably, dearth 

 and dire famine await most of the rest. 

 There are some — look at certain of the 

 Oil-beetles — exposed to so many chances of 

 destruction that, to save one, they are 

 obliged to procreate a thousand. They sel- 

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