The Method of the Ammophilae 



and there, in the softest parts. By degrees 

 they found the spot where the sting was most 

 effectual; and the habit once formed became 

 a true instinct. Transitions from one me- 

 thod of operation to the other, intermediary 

 changes, sufficed to bolster up these sweeping 

 assertions. In a letter of the i6th of April, 

 1 88 1, he asks G. J. Romanes to consider the 

 problem : 



" I do not know," he says " whether you 

 will discuss in your book on the mind of ani- 

 mals any of the more complex and wonder- 

 ful instincts. It is unsatisfactory work, as, 

 there can be no fossilised instincts, and the/ 

 sole guide is their state in other members/ 

 of the same order, and mere probability. 



" But if you do discuss any (and it will 

 perhaps be expected of you), I should think 

 that you could not select a better case thajti 

 that of the sand-wasps which paralyse their 

 prey as described by Fabre in his wonderful 

 paper in the Annales des sciences naturelles, 

 and since amplified in his admirable Sou- 

 venirs. . . ." 



I thank you, O illustrious master, for you • 

 eulogistic expressions, proving the keen irf 

 terest which you took in my studies of iri- 



