The Botanical Instinct 
the Sphex, who, having refreshed herself at 
the sugar-works of the field eringo, suddenly 
flies off, eager to stab the Cricket, the food 
of her grub? 
It is a matter of memory, some will make 
haste to reply. 
Ah no! Please do not speak of memory 
here; do not appeal to the belly’s powers of. 
reminiscence! Man is fairly well endowed 
with mnemonic aptitudes. Yet which of us 
has retained the least recollection of his 
mother’s milk? If we had never seen a babe 
at the breast, we could never suspect that we 
began life in the same fashion. 
This food of earliest infancy is not remem- 
bered; it is certified only by example, as by 
that of the Lamb, which, with bended knees 
and frisking tail, sucks at the udder and butts 
it with its head. No, the mouthfuls of 
mother’s milk have left not a trace in the 
mind. 
And you would have it that the insect, 
after a transformation that has changed it 
entirely, both inside and out, remembers its 
first diet, when we ourselves, who are not 
remoulded in the crucible of a metamorpho- 
sis, remain in the most absolute darkness 
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