350 The Hunting Wasps 



whereby an animal communicates with that 

 which is not itself : there are others not capable 

 of comparison, however remote, with those 

 which we possess. 



If the act of the Ammophila were an isolated 

 fact, I should not have lingered over it as I 

 have done ; but I propose to speak of others 

 stranger still, which will carry conviction to 

 the most exacting mind. After relating them, 

 therefore, I shall return to the subject of special 

 senses, irreducible senses, unknown to us. 



For the moment, let us go back to the Grey 

 Worm, which it would be as well for us to know 

 in a less casual fashion. I have four of them, 

 dug up with the knife at the spots indicated by 

 the Ammophila. My intention was to substi- 

 tute them, by turns, for the doomed victim, 

 so as to see the Wasp's operation repeated. 

 When my plan failed, I placed the worms in a 

 glass jar, with a layer of earth and a lettuce- 

 stalk above them. By day, my captives re- 

 mained buried in the earth ; at night, they 

 came up to the surface, where I caught them 

 gnawing at the salad from below. In August, 

 they dug deep down, not to come up again, and 

 fashioned themselves a cocoon apiece of earth, 

 very rough on the outer surface, oval in shape 

 and the size of a small pigeon's ^^^'^. The moth 

 appeared at the end of the same month. I 



