The Hunting Wasps 



There can be no name for the unknown. In 

 order to throw if possible a little light on 

 this detail of animal psychology, I made a 

 series of experiments which I will now de- 

 scribe. 1 



The first has for its subject the Great Cer- 

 ceris, who hunts Cleonus-weevils. About ten 

 o'clock in the morning, I catch twelve fe- 

 males, all belonging to the same colony and 

 at work on the same bank, busy digging bur- 

 rows or victualling them. Each prisoner is 

 placed separately in a little paper bag and 

 the whole lot put in a box. I walk about a 

 mile and a half from the site of the nests and 

 then release my Cerceres, first taking care, 

 so that I may know them later, to mark them 

 with a white dot in the middle of the thorax, 

 using a straw dipped in indelible paint. 



The Wasps fly only a few yards away, in 

 every direction, one here, another there; 

 they settle on blades of grass, pass their fore- 

 tarsi over their eyes for a moment, as though 

 dazzled by the bright sunshine to which they 

 have suddenly been restored; then they take 

 flight, some sooner, some later, and all, with- 

 out hesitation, make straight for the south, 



^or other essays on the homing of insects, cf. The 

 Mason-bees: chaps, ii to vi. Translator's Note, 

 333 



