The Hunting Wasps 



tells us; only, he was mistaken as to the hero- 

 ine of the drama, the drama itself and its 

 significance. He was profoundly mistaken; 

 and I will prove it. 



First of all, the old English scientist was 

 bound to know enough about the creatures to 

 which he gives these high dignities to call 

 things by their right names. Let us there- 

 fore take the word Sphex in its strict scientific 

 meaning. Under this assumption, by what 

 strange aberration was this English Sphex, if 

 any such there be, choosing a Fly for her prey, 

 when her kinswomen hunt such different 

 game, Orthoptera ? Even admitting what I 

 consider to be inadmissible, a Fly to form the 

 quarry of a Sphex, other difficulties come 

 crowding up. It is now duly proved that the 

 Burrowing Wasps do not take dead bodies to 

 their larvae, but a victim merely numbed, 

 paralysed. Then what is the meaning of this 

 prey of which the Sphex cuts off the head, the 

 abdomen, the wings? The stump carried 

 away is no more than a fragment of a corpse, 

 which would infect the cell with its rotten- 

 ness, without being of any use to the larva, 

 whose hatching is not due for some days yet. 

 It is as clear as daylight: when making his 

 observation, Darwin did not have before him 

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