Chapter xvii 



THE RETURN TO THE NEST 



The Ammophila sinking her well at a late hour 

 of the day leaves her work, after closing the 

 orifice with a stone lid, flits away from flower to 

 flower, goes to another part of the country, and 

 yet next day is able to come back with her cater- 

 pillar to the home excavated on the day before, 

 notwithstanding the unfamiliar locality, which 

 is often quite new to her. The Bembex, laden 

 with game, alights with almost mathematical 

 precision on the threshold of her door, which is 

 blocked with sand and indistinguishable from 

 the rest of the sandy expanse. Where my sight 

 and recollection are at fault, their eyes and 

 their memory possess a sureness that is very 

 nearly infallible. One would think that insects 

 had something more subtle than mere remem- 

 brance, a kind of intuition for places to which 

 we have nothing similar, in short, an indefinable 

 faculty which I call memory, failing any other 

 expression to denote it. There can be no name 

 for the unknown. In order to throw if possible 



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