A PRACTICE AMONG WASPS. 343 



Who of us shall say, darkling as we are, that because the 

 lamp of instinct is, for all their common wants and purposes, 

 .the guiding light of insects, that they are not permitted to 

 possess in reserve, and to employ in special exigencies, some 

 assisting tapers kindled at that more exalted luminary, Rea- 

 son? That thus it is, the observations of those who know 

 most of their economy go far to prove ; so far, that if we 

 deny to them a certain measure of rational judgment, we must 

 do the same to every visible denizen of earth which wears 

 not the human form. Some insect actions, it is true, which 

 would seem on consideration referable solely to instinct, so 

 very much resemble such as are prompted among ourselves, 

 by reason acting on experience, that were not, with the insect 

 agent, that experience known to be wanting, we should con- 

 clude that from reason they must emanate. 



Of this description is a practice common amongst some of 

 the solitary wasps, which are accustomed to provision their 

 tunnelled nests with a supply of living caterpillars as food for 

 their young. If these caterpillars were stung to death before 

 deposit, they would soon be in no state of proper preservation 

 for their destined consumers, and if consigned unhurt to the 

 sepulchral larder, they would disturb the quiet, perhaps 

 destroy the existence, of its infant inmates. To meet these 

 contingencies, what does the maternal purveyor but inflict on 

 her soft-bodied victims not a mortal, but a disabling wound, 

 which keeps them in their coil, each waiting passively its turn 

 to be despatched. 



