vi INSTINCT 95 



"The spider was so small that she held it in her mandibles 

 well above the ground, and we only speak of her as dragging it 

 because she walked -backward and acted as though she were 

 obliged to exert herself. Quite often the spiders taken by this 

 species are too large to be carried, and then it is necessary to drag 

 them, and this habit is so ingrained that, when it would be much 

 more convenient to go straight ahead, they stick to the ancient 

 custom, and seem unable to move in any other way." l 



We may perhaps best understand this behaviour if we 

 compare it with our own little foibles. We all have our 

 own way of doing things, and though our reason may tell 

 us that somebody else's way is better, still we like our own. 

 The basis of this liking is a kind of structure which we 

 may indifferently call mental or cerebral built up by past 

 actions. The structure once formed, we find satisfaction 

 in its exercise, and a certain dissatisfaction in anything 

 which excites the structure without bringing it into full 

 exercise, e.g., when we do the same thing, but are made to 

 do it in a different way. So it is with the wasp. It wants 

 to act in its own way, but we cannot infer that it is wholly 

 unaware of what it is doing, or in all respects incapable of 

 guiding its actions. 



9. Still, this contrast of dull and often wholly irrational 

 uniformity with highly adaptive contrivances remains the 

 most remarkable feature of insect psychology. Is the dung- 

 beetle wonderfully intelligent, or crassly mechanical ? 

 Reading of its powers of co-operation how one beetle will 

 push another's ball for him and so on one is ready to 

 exclaim in wonder at this high development alike of 

 intelligence and social feeling. Reading again of their 

 habit at breeding time of rolling any small balls, even if 

 made of wood or stone, 2 one is ready to swing to the 

 opposite extreme, and to explain what before appeared as 

 co-operation as due to the lack of discrimination enough to 

 distinguish between one pellet and another. But then, 

 again, what is one to think when a good observer describes 

 such a beetle getting out of a difficulty in a manner one 

 can hardly conceive of as provided for by heredity ? Mr. 

 Lloyd Morgan tells us of a beetle getting his ball into a 



1 P. 146. 2 Schneider, p. 187. 



