122 Unconscious Memory 



will open first in the coming spring, or in spring upon the 

 blossoms that will first bear fruit in autumn, or in the 

 insides of those caterpillars which will soonest as chrysalides 

 provide the parasitic larva at once with food and with 

 protection. Other insects select the sites from which they 

 will first get forwarded to the destination best adapted 

 for their development. Thus some horseflies lay their eggs 

 upon the lips of horses or upon parts where they are 

 accustomed to lick themselves. The eggs get conveyed 

 hence into the entrails, the proper place for their develop- 

 ment, — and are excreted upon their arrival at maturity. 

 The flies that infest cattle know so well how to select 

 the most vigorous and healthiest beasts, that cattle- 

 dealers and tanners place entire dependence upon them, 

 and prefer those beasts and hides that are most scarred 

 by maggots. This selection of the best cattle by the help 

 of these flies is no evidence in support of the conclusion 

 that tlie flies possess the power of making experiments 

 consciously and of reflecting thereupon, even though the 

 men whose trade it is to do this recognise them as their 

 masters. The solitary wasp makes a hole several inches 

 deep in the sand, lays her egg, and packs along with it a 

 number of green maggots that have no legs, and which, 

 being on the point of becoming chrysalides, are well 

 nourished and able to go a long time ^^ithout food ; she 

 packs these maggots so closely together that they cannot 

 move nor turn into chrysalides, and just enough of them 

 to support the larva until it becomes a chrysalis. A kind 

 of bug [cerceris huprcsticida), \\\\\c\\ itself lives only upon 

 pollen, lays her eggs in an underground cell, and with 

 each one of them she deposits tliree beetles, which she 

 has lain in ^^•ait for and captured when they were still 

 weak through having only just left off being chrysalides. 

 She kihs these beetles, and appears to smear them with 

 a fluid whereby she preserves them fresh and suitable for 

 food. Many kinds of wasps open the cells in which their 

 larvae are confined when these must have consumed the 



