THE INSECT MIND 



enemies. None of them, save our hive bee, seems to 

 know the parasites that destroy their brood; ap- 

 parently they make them welcome in their homes, 

 thus acting the part of Nature, who is just as much 

 interested in the success of the parasite as in that 

 of the host. The Halictus moth seals up the cell in 

 which her brood has been destroyed as carefully 

 as she does the others, when she is only sealing up 

 emptiness. The spider is wise when all insects are 

 wise, and stupid when all insects are stupid. She 

 has eight gleaming eyes, but they do not serve her 

 to tell her own ball of eggs from that of another of 

 different shape and structure. She will accept a ball 

 of cork in lieu of her own, embrace it lovingly, 

 fondle it with her palpi, fasten it to her spinnerets, 

 and drag it away. Between her own ball and one of 

 cork placed side by side on the floor she apparently 

 has no choice, and will take the one she reaches first. 

 From amid four or five cork balls she rarely selects 

 her own, but snaps up a ball at random. A ball she 

 must have; it is so written in the bond; but as to 

 which one, what matters it.^ 



"The insects," Fabre says, "have a calendar of 

 their own. At a given hour suddenly they awaken, 

 as suddenly afterwards they fall asleep. The in- 

 genious becomes incompetent when the prescribed 

 hour is ended." 



