Henri Fab re 497 



it up. Now, if she had any gleam of intelligence she 

 must have noticed the cell was empty. How does it 

 happen that she did not discover that her egg was mis- 

 sing? But there is more yet. Fabre took away the 

 whole series of cells, which were attached to a wall. The 

 Pelopgeus has the habit of plastering her cells all over 

 with a coating of mud when the series is complete. And 

 on the bare wall, where once her cells had been, the wasp 

 Fabre was examining proceeded to neatly plaster a 

 covering which had no meaning or use. 



Not an Exceptional Case. 



' ' What kind of an intelligence is that ? Is it an isolated 

 case of aberration? By no means. Henri Febre proved 

 by the closest of experiments that all insects act in the 

 same way. Gladly would he have shown that such cases 

 are caused by distractions, that they are only exceptional. 

 But, alas ! as he says, every species of insect tested by 

 this method committed similar stupidities. The inexor- 

 able logic of the facts caused him to draw up the follow- 

 ing conclusions : — 



' ' The insect is neither free nor conscious in its indus- 

 try. For it the external functions are regulated with 

 almost as much rigour as the internal functions, like 

 those of digestion, for example. It builds, it spins, it 

 hunts, it stings, it paralyses just as it digests, just as it 

 secretes the venom of its weapon or the silk of its cocoon 

 — always without knowing anything about the means or 

 the goal. It is as ignorant of its marvellous talents as 

 the stomach is ignorant of its own chemistry. It can 

 neither add nor subtract anything essential to its work 

 any more than it can increase or diminish the pulsations 

 of its dorsal vessel. 



"Experience teaches it nothing. Time can never suc- 

 ceed in enlightening the obscurities of its unconscious- 

 ness. "Its art, perfect in its speciality, but useless before 

 novel difficulties, transmits itself unchangingly as the 

 art of suckling is transmitted to the nursling. To expect 



