Possibilities of Societies. 47 



Dudgeon is a member, but if she is not, she ought to be) is 

 carrying out at Lincluden, with a care and precision worthy 

 of the best scientific laboratory, a series of experiments on 

 light and electricity of great moment and that are likely to 

 have a practical bearing on agriculture and horticulture. 



Any member of the Society faithfully and diligently pur- 

 suing natural knowledge may at any moment hit upon some 

 truth hitherto unsurmised of far-reaching significance. It 

 is no matter if they don't; they will still have the pleasure — 

 the exquisite pleasure — of their pursuits ; but it is inspiring 

 to fancy that one may perchance come upon a nugget and 

 leave the world a little wiser and richer than one found it ; 

 and I am quite sure that the Sherlock Holmes instinct — the 

 detective instinct — with which we are all more or less en- 

 dowed, is far better employed in unravelling the secrets of 

 Nature than in tracking the tangled footsteps of crime. 



Let me quote an instance of the way in which unexpected 

 collateral discoveries sometimes come to those who are not 

 looking for them. For a number of years Mr and Mrs 

 Peckham, of Wisconsin, solitary workers, have been engaged 

 in the study of Wasps Social and Solitary, and have pro- 

 duced a charming monograph dealing with their habits and 

 instincts. All their observations are of absorbing interest, 

 as were those of Kirkby and Spence — some of them are 

 dramatic — but there was one that was of quite peculiar 

 significance. Watching the Ammophila, one of the most 

 perfect and industrious of the little wasp-workers, they 

 noticed to their amazement that after she had constructed her 

 nest or burrow, and stored it with caterpillars as food for 

 the larvae, when her eggs had hatched out, she not only, like 

 other wasps, brought a quantity of fine grains of sand and 

 soil with which to fill up the orifice, but, picking up a small 

 pebble in her mandibles, she used it like any pavlor, as a 

 hammer or mallet with which to pound them down with rapid 

 strokes, thus making the spot as hard and firm as the sur- 

 rounding surface. This remarkable observation of the Peck- 

 hams, which they have repeated many times, and which has 

 been confirmed by other observers, upsets the theories of 

 those who would regard insects as mere automata and stamps 

 the Ammophila at any rate as an intelligent and tool-using 



