286 



NATURE 



[June 13, 19 18 



was a strongs absorption line or band which was 

 estimated to be in the position of sodium D. 

 There was possibly a bright fringe on the red 

 side of this absorption line. Between D and C 

 there were two fairly conspicuous bright lines, 

 which were estimated to be in the neighbourhood 

 of A 615 and ^630. The star was brighter than 

 Altair, and was of a reddish-yellow colour. 



. ^ A. Fowler. 



INSECT BEHAVIOUR.^ 



IT was on a Harmas (an untilled, pebbly bit of 

 land) in Provence that Fabre, after heroic 

 struggles, opened his "laboratory of living ento- 

 mology," where, undisturbed, he might "pry into 

 life." "Never, in my insect-hunting memories, 

 have I seen so large a population at a single 



back of the butterfly's neck; the beautifully 

 finished cupolas made by Eumenes wasps out of 

 minute pebbles and mortar, and stored with half- 

 paralysed caterpillars, the food for the grub which, 

 hatches out of the egg cleverly suspended from the 

 roof ; the way the glow-worm deals with snails, 

 first chloroforming them and then drinking them, 

 for the flesh has to be liquefied into a broth before 

 it can be used. Fabre 's words suggest that the 

 liquid passes up the hollow mandibles to the 

 mouth, but there seems some doubt on this point, 

 as may be seen by comparing the recent observa- 

 tions of Miss Kathleen Haddorw with those of 

 Prof. Bugnion. 



Apart from the sheer delight afforded by Fabre 's 

 intimate descriptions, the chief value of the essay.s^ 

 before us lies in their evidence of the limitations 

 of instinct, which gives a basis for the conviction. 



tic I. — The I >cosa l>injj hea 1 (.1 )*nwnr(l> on the edge of her pit, holding in her hind legs her white bag of eggs, and lifting them toward 

 the sun, to assist the hatching. From " The Wonders of Instinct." 



spot; all the occupations have made it their rally- 

 ing-point. Here come hunters of every kind of 

 game, builders in clay, weavers of cotton goods, 

 collectors of pieces cut from a leaf or the petals 

 of a flower, architects in pasteboard, plasterers 

 mixing mortar, carpenters boring wood, miners 

 digging underground galleries, artificers handling 

 goldbeaters' skin, and many more." What a place 

 for studying those inborn capacities for effective 

 behaviour which we label instinctive ! What dis- 

 closures this inimitable observer gives us — the 

 sounds of the midsummer night from the tink- 

 ling of toads to the death-wail of the surprised 

 cicada, the green grasshopper's strange banquet 

 off her fertilising capsule, the quick and fatal bite 

 which the *'devilkin" or Empusa gives on the 



1 "The Wonders of Instinct. Chapters in the Psychology of Insects." 

 By J. H. Fabre. Translated by A. T. de Mattos and Bernard Miall. 

 Pp. 320. (London : T. Fisher Unwin, Ltd., 1918.) Price 10^. 6ii. net. 



NO. 2537, VOL. lOl] 



from which the author never departed, that in- 

 stinctive behaviour is not in the same category as 

 intelligent behaviour. On one hand we see extra- 

 ordinarily perfect instinctive behaviour like that 

 of the Capricorn grub boring in the depths of the 

 oak-tree for three years on end, yet coming at the 

 appropriate time to the surface and preparing 

 down to minute details an exit for the future 

 beetle. It behaves as if it had perfect prescience. 

 On the other hand, the burying beetles, though 

 persisting in trying all their bag of tricks when 

 their undertaking is difficult, will allow themselves 

 to be baffled by a hitch which the least spice of 

 intelligence would remove, and will submit to in- 

 carceration in a prison which to expert tunnellers 

 like Necrophori has practically an open door. 

 Similarly, Fabre 's procession caterpillars per- 

 sisted for a week in a futile circumambulation of 

 the margin of a vase in the garden. Instinctive 



