i88o.] 
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CORRESPONDENCE. 
A QUERY FOR PHRENOLOGISTS. 
To the Editor of The Journal of Science. 
Sir, — I believe it has been said, by an authority no less com- 
petent than Professor Owen, that to distinguish between the 
brain of man and that of the anthropoid apes is the “ anatomist’s 
difficulty.” On the other hand, it is maintained by phrenologists 
that the organs of the “ moral sentiments,” and those senti- 
ments themselves, are wanting in the lower animals. If this 
assertion is true, there ought to exist a very broad and well- 
marked distinction between the human and the simian brain. 
Again, few naturalists of the New School will accept the dogma 
that the so-called moral sentiments are confined to man. I cer- 
tainly maintain that the manifestations of benevolence, venera- 
tion, and consciousness can be distinctly traced, e.g., in dogs. 
As there appear some symptoms of a recrudescence of 
phrenology, this difficulty, I think, calls for an explanation from 
its advocates. — I am, &c., 
R. N. M. 
ARE WASPS CARNIVOROUS? 
To the Editor of the Journal of Science. 
Sir, — A correspondent in a contemporary, after stating that in 
Sutherland he had seen a wasp “ in the aCt of devouring a 
caterpillar which was still alive, but considerably mangled by 
the mandibles of a wasp,” enquires “ Is it not unusual for the 
common wasp to eat living creatures of any sort ?” Had he 
directed his attention to wasps when in a room he would have 
seen them chase flies, catch (I cannot say devour), kill, and suck 
their juices. In Greece there is a wasp which makes a prey of 
spiders, tracking them as a spaniel will track a hare or a par- 
tridge. Dr. Erasmus Darwin (“ Zoonomia,” vol. i., p. 263) 
says, “ Wasps are said to catch large spiders, and to cut off their 
