194 
ANIMAL INTELLrGE:; 
Mr, Henry Cecil, describing an observation by Consul 
Merlin, writes as follows {Nature, yoL xviii., p. 311) : — 
I was sitting one summer’s afternoon at an open window 
(my bedroom) looking into a garden, when I was surprised to 
observe a large and rare species of spider run across the window- 
sill in a crouching attitude. It struck me the spider was evi- 
dently alarmed, or it would not have so fearlessly approached 
me. It hastened to conceal itself under the projecting ledge of 
the window-sill inside the room, and had hardly done so when 
a very tine large hunting wasp buzzed in at the open window 
and flew about the room, evidently in search of something. 
Finding nothing, the wasp returned to the open window and 
settled on the window-sill, running backwards and forwards as 
a dog does when looking or searching for a lost scent. It soon 
alighted on the track of the poor spider, and in a moment it 
discovered its hiding-place, darted down on it, and no doubt 
inflicted a wound with its sting. The spider rushed off again, 
and this time took refuge under the bed, trying to conceal itself 
under the framework or planks which supported the mattress. 
The same scene occurred here; the wasp now appeared to follow 
the spider by sight, but ran backwards and forwards in large 
circles like a hound. The moment the trail of the spider was 
found the wasp followed all the turns it had made till it came 
on it again. The poor spider was chased from hiding-place to 
hiding-place, out of the bedroom, across a passage, and into the 
middle of another large room, where it finally succumbed to the 
repeated stings inflicted bv the wasp. [Rolling itself up into a 
ball the wasp then took possession of its prey, and after ascer- 
taining it could make no resistance, tucked it up under its 
very long hind legs , just as a hawk or eagle carries off its quarry, 
when I interposed and secured both for my collection. 
Mr. Belt, in his work already frequently quoted, 
gives the following account of a struggle which not un- 
frequently occurs between wasps and ants for the sweet 
secretion of 6 frog-hoppers : 5 — 
Similarly as, on the savannahs, I had observed a wasp at- 
tending the honey -glands of the bull’s-horn acacia along with 
the ants ; so at Santo Domingo another wasp, belonging to quite 
a different genus ( Nectarina ), attended some of the clusters of 
frog-hoppers, and for the possession of others a constant skir- 
mishing was going on. The wasp stroked the young hoppers, 
and sipped up the honey when it was exuded, jnst like the ants 
