6 WASP STUDIES AFIELD 



that they exercise discrimination and choice, that they learn 

 by experience and form habits in the restricted sense of the 

 term and that they can modify their behavior adaptively in 

 response to unusual stimuli on the basis of previous exper- 

 ience and therefore behave, to a limited extent, like intelli- 

 gent beings. Such an interpretation will be accepted by 

 any unbiassed student of the solitary wasps, and those 

 who hold it may be classed as the moderates among 

 behaviorists. 



There are, however, three classes of extremists the 

 mystery-mongers, the simplicists and the humanizers who 

 fail to take account of all the facts and find support for 

 their opinions in particular aspects of wasp behavior. 

 Fabre may be classed among the mystery-mongers, because 

 when he turned to the interpretation of the wonderful facts 

 he had so carefully observed, his final appeal was always to 

 some mysterious cause. This is best seen in his interpreta- 

 tion of the stinging of the prey as the expression of an in- 

 scrutable, intuitive knowledge of the prey's nervous an- 

 atomy a view which Bergson incorporated in his philoso- 

 phy of instinct. Fabre's treatment of the wasp's homing 

 activities and of her method of finding her prey are similarly 

 attributed to her possession of mysterious senses. This 

 mental attitude was due to preconceptions to which I shall 

 return presently. The simplicists are preoccupied with the 

 reflex or tropistic, i.e., the mechanized behavior. At least 

 one of them, Bethe, is also as much of a mystery-monger 

 as Fabre. Loeb and Bohn have no first hand acquaintance 

 with the wasps and are influenced by their knowledge of 

 the lower invertebrates and insects whose behavior is so 

 highly and consistently mechanized that evidence of its 

 plasticity or modifiability are feeble or difficult to observe. 

 The humanizers, who interpret animals like the wasps as 

 if they were miniature men, are rarely met with at the 



