THE WAYS OF LIFE 215 



an instinctive animal may become the slave of routine. 

 On the other hand, there are details in the story which 

 suggest that the routine is no blind automatism. There 

 was the energetic searching for the stolen cricket a 

 variation from the usual routine. It seems pushing the 

 law of parsimony too far to suggest that the search was 

 simply the fussing about of a perplexed wasp. There 

 was, moreover, an incidental experiment made by Fabre. 

 On one occasion he substituted for the paralysed cricket 

 another specimen which had not been stung. When the 

 Sphex came to drag it in, the cricket naturally resisted, and 

 there was a keen struggle. It did not last long, however, 

 for the Sphex soon leaped on its victim and stung it thrice. 

 It is possible that intelligence took the reins at the critical 

 moment. In any case, there was no automatism. 



Fabre has led many to marvel at the effective way in 

 which the Sphex wasp stings the cricket in its ganglia, 

 and drags the paralysed victim to the burrow, and this 

 marvel does not stand alone. But Marchal points out that 

 the instinct is not so fixed or perfect as Fabre represented. 

 Mistakes are sometimes made ; the precision of the fatal 

 thrust is sometimes at fault ; many blows are often given. 

 The spots where the Cerceris strikes the Halictus are those 

 most conveniently reached by the sting ; the squeezing of 

 the brain is because the Cerceris likes the juice ; and the 

 idea that the mother Bee-hunter empties the dead bee of 

 its honey because that would give the carnivorous larvae 

 pains in their stomach is altogether too anthropomorphic 

 (see p. 426). 



THE TALE OF THE BLACK ' WHITE ANT ' 



Among quaint and wonderful insects a unique place 

 must be ceded to the so-called ' white ants ' or Termites. 



