266 The Animal Mind 



elimination of useless movements occurs, as in many species 

 the nest is revisited but once. Nor is there any opportunity 

 for the elimination of errors through their unpleasant conse- 

 quences. Doubtless the wasp does not choose the best possi- 

 ble route for her return to the nest, and doubtless she would 

 improve upon it if she made repeated journeys ; but at least 

 she performs at the first trial definite, not random, responses 

 to stimuli that are new to her ; responses that are not wholly 

 due to inherited nervous mechanism. We have here a kind 

 of behavior that is not in any sense "trial and error." 



Without undertaking the difficult task of explaining it 

 fully, one or two aspects of this form of profiting by experience 

 may be noted. The wasp, when she has finished digging her 

 nest, makes a "locality survey" ; that is, she circles about the 

 neighborhood in flight for a few minutes. This conduct on 

 her part is doubtless instinctive. During the process she 

 receives a number of specific visual stimuli. On her flight 

 in search of prey, several visual landmarks probably impress 

 her. When she has secured her spider or caterpillar, she 

 begins the return flight. We cannot attempt to explain all 

 the mysteries connected with this, but at least we can say that 

 the flight back to the nest, and the alighting and burying the 

 prey, are instinctive actions which are carried out only under 

 the influences of the same visual stimuli that the animal re- 

 ceived on its locality survey and its outward flight. It is 

 essential to their performance that the wasp's nervous system 

 should receive stimulation like that which it has received a 

 short time previously. The case differs from the formation 

 of a habit, such as we saw illustrated in the labyrinth experi- 

 ments ; for while in a habit the action becomes dependent on 

 a certain kind of stimulus repeatedly received, here it is not 

 the frequent previous experience of the stimulus that renders 

 it and it alone effective, for the features of the locality 



