250 The Hunting Wasps 



envy ; she knows what man hardly ever knows ; 

 she knows her victim's complex nervous system 

 and reserves her successive dagger-thrusts for 

 the successive ganglia of her caterpillar. I 

 said, she knows ; what I should say is, she 

 behaves as though she knew. Her act is simple 

 inspiration. Animals obey their compelling 

 instinct, without realizing what they do. But 

 whence comes that sublime inspiration ? Can 

 theories of atavism, of natural selection, of the 

 struggle for life interpret it reasonably ? To 

 me and my friend, this was and remained one 

 of the most eloquent revelations of the un- 

 utterable logic that rules the world and guides 

 the ignorant by the laws of its inspiration. 

 Stirred to our innermost being by this flash of 

 truth, both of us felt tears of undefinable 

 emotion spring to our eyes. 



