ANECDOTES OF INSECTS. 



and abdomen of all flies captured and killed by the sphex were 

 cut off, the act might be explained by instinct. But when the 

 fly is small enough to allow the sphex to carry it off whole, it 

 does so, and it is only when it is too bulky and heavy that the ends 

 of the body are cut off, for the obvious purpose of lightening the 

 load. With respect to the wings, the detaching them was an after- 

 thought, and a measure not contemplated until the inconvenience 

 produced by their presence was felt. But here a most singular 

 effort of a faculty to which we can give no other name than that 

 of reason, was manifested. The progress of the sphex through 

 the air was obstructed by the resistance produced by the wings of 

 the fly which it carried. How is it conceivable that upon finding 

 this, and not before, the sphex should suspend its progress, lay 

 down its load, and cut off the wings which produced this resist- 

 ance, if it did not possess some faculty by which it was enabled 

 to connect the wings in particular, rather than any other part of 

 the mutilated body of the fly, with the resistance which it encoun- 

 tered, in the relation of cause and effect ? To such a faculty I 

 know no other name that can be given than that of reason, 

 although I readily admit the diniculty of ascribing such an 

 intellectual effort. 



59. Gleditsch * relates that one of his friends desiring to dry 

 the body of a toad, stuck it upon the end of a stick planted in 

 the ground, to prevent it from being carried away by the 

 sexton-beetle, which abounded in the place. This, however, 

 was unavailing. The beetles having assembled round the stick, 

 surveyed the object and tried the ground, deliberately applied 

 themselves to make an excavation around the stick; and hav- 

 ing undermined it, soon brought it to the ground, after which 

 they not only buried the carcase of the toad, but also the stick 

 itself. 



60. Now this proceeding indicates a curious combination of 

 circumstances which it appears impossible to explain without 

 admitting the beetles to possess considerable reasoning power and 

 even foresight. The expedient of undermining the stick can only 

 be explained by their knowledge that it was supported in its 

 upright position by the resistance of the earth in contact with it. 

 They must have known, therefore, that by removing this support, 

 the stick, and with it the toad, would fall. This being accom- 

 plished, it may be admitted that instinct would impel them to- 

 bury the toad, but assuredly no instinct could be imagined ta 

 compel them to bury the stick ; an act which could be prompted 

 by no conceivable motive except that of concealing from those 



* Phys. Bot. (Econ. Abhand., vol. iiL, 220. 



139 



