INTELLIGENT BEHAVIOUR IN INSECTS 133 
take the one that hung there in plain view? It could not 
have been due to the fact that we had handled the spider, 
since when, on other occasions, we took one that had been 
paralyzed, examined it, and then returned it to the wasp, she 
accepted it without hesitation. . . . In forty minutes she came 
back with another spider, but, instead of taking it into the nest, 
Fic. 20.—Spiders placed by Solitary Wasps in the crotches of 
branching stems (after Peckham). 
she hung it upon a bean plant near by, and then proceeded to 
dig a new hole a few inches distant from the first. Foolish 
little wasp, what a waste of labour! . Truly, if you are endowed 
with energy beyond your fellows, you are but meagrely furnished 
with reason.” 
Here we have the routine of instinct—the normal mode of 
hunting and capturing prey, the normal procedure of bringing 
the spider, and then making the nest, predominating over any 
tendency to initiate intelligent improvements. This, however, 
should not surprise us, in whom the force of habit is often so 
strong. Nor should we feel surprise at the apparently stupid 
tolerance some of these wasps display in presence of parasites. 
