Fabre's Writings 



disconcerts us by its ignorance and stupidity. 



The best-endowed insect cannot do any- 

 thing " outside the narrow circle of its at- 

 tributions. Every insect displays, in its call- 

 ing, in which it excels, its series of logically 

 co-ordinated actions. There it is truly a 

 master." x Apart from this it is utterly in- 

 capable. And even within the cycle of its 

 attributions, apart from the customary con- 

 ditions under which it exercises them, the 

 ineptness of the insect surpasses imagination. 

 * Let us consider the facts. 



One of these Hymenoptera whose impec- 

 cable science we were admiring just now, a 

 Languedocian Sphex, is busy closing the bur- 

 row in which she has laid her egg with its 

 store of game. We brush her aside, and 

 plunder her nest before her eyes. Directly 

 the passage is free, she enters and remains 

 for a few moments. Then she emerges and 

 proceeds to stop up the cell, as though noth- 

 ing were the matter, as though she had not 

 found her burrow empty, as though the work 

 of closing the cell had still a motive. 2 



The Mason-Bee, excellently endowed in 

 the matter of boring, emerges from her nest 



1 Souvenirs, I., pp. 265, 314.; v., p. 99; vn., p. 48. 



2 Ibid., i., 171-175. The Hunting Wasps, chap, x., " The 

 Ignorance of Instinct." 



339 



