More Hunting Wasps 



defect — a very grave one — is that it sub- 

 jects observation to very uncertain chances. 

 There is little prospect of meeting the insect 

 dragging its victim along; and, in the second 

 place, should good fortune suddenly smile 

 upon you, preoccupied as you are with other 

 matters you have not the substitute at hand. 

 If we provide ourselves with the necessary 

 head of game in advance, the huntress is not 

 there. We avoid one reef to founder on an- 

 other. Moreover, these unlooked-for ob- 

 servations, made sometimes on the public 

 highway, the worst of laboratories, are only 

 half-satisfactory. In the case of swiftly- 

 enacted scenes, which it is not in our power 

 to renew again and again until perfect con- 

 viction is reached, we always fear lest we 

 may not have seen accurately, may not have 

 seen everything. 



A method which could be controlled at 

 will would offer the best guarantees, above 

 all if employed at home, under comfortable 

 conditions, favourable to precision. I 

 wished, therefore, to see my insects at work 

 on the actual table at which I am writing their 

 history. Here very few of their secrets 

 would escape me. This wish of mine was 

 an old one. As a beginner, I made some 

 experiments under glass with the Great Cer- 

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