GENERAL ADAPTIVENESS. 371 



order that it may be quietly conveyed away as a source of 

 food-supply to themselves or their young. This stupefaction 

 is usually produced by some sort of stinging or poisoning, by 

 the injection into some part of the body of the victim of 

 some fluid having narcotising or paralysing properties, the 

 result being helplessness and harinlessness in the victim. 



Certain ants of Nicaragua ' use their stings to paralyse 

 their prey.' A bug there also probably kills much larger 

 and more powerful animals than itself for instance, a cock- 

 chafer by injecting a stupifying poison while its victim is 

 asleep. ' Other species of bug certainly inject poisonous 

 fluids.' Nicaraguan wasps also benumb by stinging, so as to 

 render them quiescent and removable to their nests, various 

 spiders, grasshoppers, or horse-flies, storing them away 

 while still alive for their grubs to feed on (Belt). An 

 African sphex, another insect, makes holes in the ground, 

 and places in them stupified insects along with her own 

 eggs; while another species watches this operation, and 

 when this provident mother leaves in quest of more pro- 

 vender, lays her alien eggs in the hole (Livingstone), just as 

 the cuckoo does in reference to the eggs and nests of many 

 other birds. 



The storage, , burial, or concealment of food for future use 

 by themselves, their eggs, or young, implies in many cases 

 its proper preparation or preservation for storage. The Alpine 

 hare of Mongolia lays in ' a store of hay for winter use, 

 stacking it at the entrance of its home. The hay is collected 

 towards the end of summer, carefully dried,, and made into 

 little stacks. . . . This [hay] serves for its couch under- 

 ground and for food during the winter' (Prejevalsky). This 

 careful drying of damp fodder is frequently required prior to 

 its storage. 



Certain leaf-cutting ants, if a shower wet their leaf 

 burdens, leave them outside to dry. When properly dried 

 by the first sunshine they are carried into the nest, but 

 if sodden they are left to rot outside (Belt). So-called 

 * harvesting ' ants air or sun damp grain, so as to dry it, at 

 proper periods or under appropriate circumstances, storing 

 it in granaries (Houzeau, Sykes), removing husks and 



