210 THE WOOD-WASP 



appetite from the peaches on the table of a prince, or 

 from the perspiration on the brow of a peasant. But it 

 must always return to the dunghill to perpetuate its 

 species. Just as certain species of mosquito have been 

 detected as the special agents in the transmission of 

 fever and the dread sleeping sickness, so the house-fly 

 may well be the vehicle of other forms of disease. It is 

 an unclean creature, and ought rightly to excite as much 

 repulsion as those insects which are regularly classed as 

 vermin. 



XLIX 



Does anybody wish to analyse Herbert Spencer's defini- 

 The wood- ti n f instinct as compound reflex action, let 

 wasp hi m take note of the behaviour of grown men 



and women on the sudden appearance of a wasp. It is 

 enough sometimes to throw a whole breakfast-table into 

 agitation, although, were reason as swift and automatic as 

 instinct, it would be obvious to all the company that the 

 insect harboured no more malevolent intent than a sip at 

 the strawberry jam. After all, most of us ha ve had 

 experience of the sting of a wasp or a bee, but not one 

 person in a hundred thousand of the inhabitants of these 

 islands has suffered from the bite of a snake. Yet of all 

 the impulses of human nature none is less under imme- 

 diate control than the instinctive shrinking, amounting 

 to positive dread, caused by the sudden appearance of a 

 snake. Which of us can declare honestly that the sight 

 of an adder in his path raises no stronger sense of repul- 

 sion than would a frog or a lizard ? Just so the high-bred 

 hunter will face the most formidable ' oxer ' or the densest 

 ' bulfinch ' hedge without changing his stride, and yet will 



