214 THE WONDER OF LIFE 



afresh ! This routine was repeated no fewer than forty 

 times in succession, and the apparent compulsion to do 

 things always in a given order is evidently strong. 

 Although the burrow had been so often inspected, the 

 Sphex had to do it again, when it brought its captive 

 cricket once more to the entrance. 



In regard to a nearly-related East Indian wasp, Rothney 

 made a similar experiment, which is summarized by Dr. 

 Sharp (Cambridge Natural History, vol. 6, p. 110). 



' He discovered a nest in process of construction, and 

 during the absence of the mother-wasp abstracted from 

 the burrow a large field-cricket that she had placed in 

 it ; he then deposited the Orthopteron near the cell. The 

 parent Sphex, on returning to work, entered the tunnel 

 and found the provision placed therein had disappeared. 

 She came out in a state of excitement, looked for the miss- 

 ing cricket, soon discovered it, submitted it to the process 

 of malaxation or kneading, and again placed it in the nest, 

 after having cleared it from some ants that had commenced 

 to infest it. She then disappeared, and Rothney repeated 

 the experiment. In due course the same series of operations 

 was performed, and was repeated many times, the Sphex 

 evidently acting in each case as if either the cricket had 

 disappeared owing to its being incompletely stunned or 

 to its having been stolen by ants. Finally, the observer 

 placed the cricket at a greater distance from the nest, 

 when it recovered from the ill-treatment it had received 

 sufficiently to make its escape. The points of interest 

 in this account are the fact that the cricket was only tem- 

 porarily paralysed, and that the wasp was quite able to 

 cope with the two special difficulties that must frequently 

 occur to the species in its usual round of occupations '. 



Fabre's experiment certainly shows how thoroughly 



