418 



INSTINCT OF INSECTS. 



walk with a large fly nearly as big as itself which it had 

 caught. Kneeling down he distinctly saw it cut off the head 

 and abdomen, and then, taking up with its feet the trunk or 

 middle portion of the body to which the wings remained 

 attached, fly away. But a breeze of wind acting upon the 

 wings of the fly turned round the wasp with its burthen, and 

 impeded its progress. Upon this it alighted again on the 

 gravel walk, deliberately sawed off first one wing and then the 

 other ; and having thus removed the cause of its embarrass- 

 ment, flew off with its booty. 1 Could any process of 

 ratiocination be more perfect ? " Something acts upon the 

 wings of this fly and impedes my flight. If I wish to reach 

 my nest quickly, I must get rid of them — to effect which, 

 the shortest way will be to alight again and cut them off." 

 These reflections, or others of similar import, must be sup- 

 posed to have passed through the mind of the wasp, or its 

 actions are altogether inexplicable. Instinct might have 

 taught it to cut off the wings of all flies, previously to flying 

 away with them. But here it first attempted to fly with 

 the wings on, — was impeded by a certain cause, — discovered 

 what this cause was, and alighted to remove it. The chain 

 of evidence seems perfect in proof that nothing but reason 

 could have been its prompter. 2 



An analogous though less striking fact is mentioned by 

 Beaumur, on the authority of M. Cossigny, who witnessed it 

 in the Isle of France, where the Sphecina are accustomed 

 to bury the bodies of cockroaches along with their eggs 

 for provision for their young. He sometimes saw an insect 

 of this tribe attempt to drag after it into its hole a dead 



1 Zoonomia, i. 183. 



2 Mr. Newport has argued, in a paper read to the Entomological Society 

 (Trans, i. 228.), that the instinct of wasps is always to cut off the wings of flies 

 before flying away with them, and that, consequently, the above fact proves 

 nothing as to the reason of insects. Here, however, I must beg to differ from 

 him; for, supposing Dr. Darwin's statement to be accurate, which, from the 

 minute particulars into which he enters, we have no right to doubt, the circum- 

 stances of the wasp's first violating its natural instinct by flying away with the 

 fly before cutting off its wings, and then, on finding the wind act upon them, 

 alighting to do what it had neglected at first, cannot well be explained except 

 on the supposition of some reasoning process having passed through its mind. 

 In any case, there is no need of this particular fact to prove the existence of 

 reason in insects, of which such numerous other instances have been adduced. 



