228 THE SOLITARY WASPS. 



Hi CHAPTEK XVIII. 



CONCLUSION. 



Our study of the activities of wasps has satisfied us that it is 

 impracticable to classify them in any simple way. The old no- 

 tion that the acts of bees, wasps, and ants were all varying f onus 

 of instinct is no longer tenable and must give way to a more 

 philosophical view. It would appear to be quite certain that 

 there are not only instinctive acts but acts of intelligence as 

 well, and a third variety also acts that ar probably due to im- 

 itation, although whether much or little intelligence accompan- 

 ies this imitation, is admittedly difficult to determine. Again, 

 acts that are instinctive in one species may be intelligent in an- 

 other, and we may even assert that there is a considerable varia- 

 tion in the amount of intelligence displayed by different individ- 

 uals of the same species. "We have met with such difficulty in 

 our attempts to arrange the activities of wasps in different groups 

 that we are forced to the conclusion that any scheme of classifi- 

 cation is merely a convenience, useful for purposes of study or 

 generalization, but not to be taken for an absolutely true ex- 

 pression of all the facts. This kind of perplexity is well un- 

 derstood and allowed for in all morphological work but it has 

 never been fully realized in the study of habits. The expla- 

 nation is not far to seek. The habits of but few animals have 

 been studied in sufficient detail to bring out the evidence that 

 there is as much variation on the psychological as on the mor- 

 phological side. 



Another difficulty which has been clearly stated by both Mor- 

 gan and Wundt, namely, the tendency to interpret the actions 

 of animals in terms of our own consciousness, must always be 

 with us. Wundt himself after indirectly criticising Romanes 



