148 HEREDITARY CHARACTERS 



tion. To place intelligent action before an instinct, in 

 fact to derive instincts from intelligent actions, seems to 

 be placing the cart before the horse. Another very im- 

 portant point is that the capture of the grasshoppers, 

 crickets, and caterpillars, paralysing them without killing 

 them, and storing them in the nest, is not of the slightest 

 use to the individual wasp. It simply provides food for 

 the larvae which the wasp will never see, and of whose 

 needs it can have no experience. This interpretation, in 

 fact, attributes to the wasp a prophetic knowledge with 

 regard to subsequent events, of which neither it nor any 

 of its ancestors have had any experience. 



Other investigators since Fabre have provided us with 

 a great many more details with regard to these wasps. 

 Apparently they are not by any means uniform in the skill 

 which they exhibit in paralysing their prey. Very often 

 they kill the prey outright, so that it decomposes in the nest. 

 At other times, the paralysis is not at all complete, and the 

 prey exhibits active movements. 1 Thus, it is evident that 

 the larvae of those individuals in which the instinct is most 

 perfect will probably supply the bulk of the individuals in 

 the next generation, and they will have a greater chance 

 than any other individuals of inheriting the instinct in its 

 fully developed form. There is thus a stringent selection 

 with regard to this instinct, which explains how it is main- 

 tained at a high standard by the action of the selection 

 upon inborn variations. Individuals that do not inherit 

 the instinct in its fullest form will stand a very poor chance 

 of producing offspring in a manner likely to ensure their 

 survival in comparison with those that inherit it fully or 

 vary towards greater perfection. The origin of the instinct 

 is equally satisfactorily explained by the action of natural 

 selection upon inborn variations. 



Many of the instincts of insects do not benefit the indi- 



1 Peckham, G. W. and E. G., " On the Instincts and Habits of the Solitary 

 Wasps," Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey, Madison, Wis., 

 U.S.A., 1898 ; Wasps Social and Solitary, Boston and New York, 1905. 



