INSTINCTIVE BEHAVIOUR IN INSECTS 77 
without one or more chambers. Others bore into decaying 
wood ; others use straws, or make tunnels in bramble stems ; 
while the mud-daubers build cells in which to store the 
food and lay the egg. This is sometimes deposited on the 
first, sometimes on the last, sometimes on some intermediate 
victim, but generally in much the same place and position. 
Ammophila, for instance, lays it on the side of the sixth or 
seventh segment—that is to say, in about the mid position. 
Some species first capture their prey, and then make the 
nest in which it is to be entombed. Others first prepare the 
nest, and then carry or drag their prey to it—often from con- 
siderable distances—quite irrespective of what seems to us 
the more appropriate method of the two under the particular 
circumstances of the case. And the way in which the victim 
is dragged into the nest is similarly a matter of inheritance. 
Each way is characteristic of the species concerned, and would 
be an important part of any definition of the animal based 
upon its modes of behaviour. For example, a Sphex places 
her grasshopper just at the entrance of the nest, which she then 
enters herself before dragging in her prey by the antenne. 
When the wasp was in the hole, Fabre moved the victim a 
little way off ; the wasp came out, brought the grasshopper to 
the entrance as before, and went in a second time. This was 
repeated about forty times, each time with the same result, 
until the patience of the naturalist was exhausted, and the 
persistent wasp took her booty in after her appropriate fashion. 
She must place the grasshopper close to the opening; she 
must then descend and examine the nest, and, after that, must 
drag it down. Nothing less than the performance of these 
acts in a certain order satisfies her instinctive impulse. 
In a private letter, from which he kindly allows me to 
quote, Dr. Peckham says: “We have recently made some 
experiments on this wasp (Sphex ichneumonea). First we 
allow her to carry in her prey undisturbed, to see how far she 
was faithful to the traditions of her ancestors, and to observe 
ber normal methods. On the next day, when she had placed 
her grasshopper just at the opening of the nest, and while she 
