226 ANECDOTE OF A WASP. 



nest be carried off, cut in various directions, and exposed to 

 the light, they never abandon it, or relax in their attention to 

 their progeny. No less admirable than the affection thus 

 testified, is their ingenuity displayed, under the same circum- 

 stances of distress, in repairing the breaches of their habitation, 

 removing its ruins, and fixing it to the glass by columns of 

 support. Operations such as these, suggested by, and adapted 

 to, unlooked for exigences, savour certainly of something 

 beyond the limited powers of instinct ; and an anecdote related 

 of the Wasp, by Dr. Darwin, exemplifies yet more strongly 

 its capacity of adapting means to ends.* The doctor saw, on 

 his gravel walk, a Wasp with a Fly nearly as big as itself. 

 Kneeling down, he distinctly observed it cut off the head 

 and abdomen of its prey, and then taking up the trunk to 

 which the wings remained attached, fly away ; but a breeze of 

 wind acting upon the wings of the Fly, turned round the Wasp 

 with its burthen, and impeded its progress. Upon this, it 

 again alighted, sawed off first one wing, and then the other, 

 and having thus removed the cause of its embarrassment, flew 

 off with its booty. In the above instance the Wasp seemed to 

 have omitted a part of its usual operation on the bodies of 

 captured Flies, all the wings of which we have several times 

 seen them thus dexterously cut off. 



Let us now return to our starting point of this morning 

 the streamlet side the palm willow the hole in the bank 



* Quoted by Kirby and Spence. 



