NEW GLEANINGS IN OLD FIELDS 



kind. Its attitudes and procedure would lead you 

 to say that the wasp was thinking and calculating 

 as a mechanic would under similar circumstances. 

 In another case the Sphex wasp has need to para- 

 lyze the mouth-parts of the prey she is carrying, so, 

 as she bestrides it and drags it also by its antennae, 

 it cannot grip her with its mandibles or impede her 

 progress by seizing upon blades of grass by the way. 

 Like a skillful surgeon, the wasp knows just what 

 to do, knows in what part of the head to insert her 

 sting to produce the desired effect. 



"To know everything and to know nothing," 

 says Fabre, "according as it acts under normal or 

 exceptional conditions : that is the strange antithesis 

 presented by the insect race." 



But we must never credit the insect with under- 

 standing as the result of cogitation; it knows noth- 

 ing; its life is a series of acts fatally linked together. 

 The mind of the insect is the mind of Nature; it is 

 action and not reflection. The plant does not con- 

 sciously select the elements in the soil or the air 

 that it needs, as we select; the vital chemistry in 

 the organism does the selecting. But the moment 

 we name what it is that does the selecting, we are 

 caught in a trap we want to know what prompted 

 it to the act. We cannot find the under side of these 

 things, because there is no under side, or upper side 

 either, any more than there is to the earth. 



