Saw-flies, Gall-flies, Ichneumons, 
496 
three times, once in each thoracic ganglion which resulted in immediate 
complete paralysis. Cerceris tuberculata hunts weevils (Cleonus] (Fig. 698) 
and stings them exactly in the large central ganglion formed by the fusion 
of the three thoracic ganglia, paralyzing them immediately. Insects thus 
paralyzed will keep alive, flexible, and fresh, but immovable, as Fabre has 
observed, for six weeks, a much longer time than is necessary for the develop¬ 
ment of any of the wasp larvae. The amazing expertness and accuracy 
displayed in plunging the sting into exactly those spots where injury will 
give rise to exactly that physiological phenomenon in the prey that will make 
it available for the special conditions attending the wasp larva’s sustenance— 
this adroitness and this seeming knowledge of the structure and the 
physiology of the prey have led some entomologists to credit the solitary 
wasp with anthropomorphic qualities that are quite unwarranted. The 
whole behavior is probably explicable as a complex and advantageous reflex 
or instinct, developed by selection. 
Similarly the whole course of the nest-building and provisioning is an 
elaborate performance wholly for the sake of the young which the mother 
will likely never see; and these young in turn will if females do the same thing, 
perfectly and in essentially if not exactly the same manner without ever 
previously seeing such remarkable processes performed. All these com¬ 
plex and altruistic habits have naturally led to much speculation concern¬ 
ing their origin and their relation to psychical conditions. Whether a con¬ 
sciousness of what is being done and an intelligence is brought to bear upon 
its doing; whether we may attribute to the wasp a psychical state, with its 
attributes of cognizance, reason, and emotion—these are questions which 
are debated warmly. The consensus of opinion, however, is distinctly 
adverse to the reading into the behavior of Ammophila or any of its allies 
anthropormorphic attributes of reason, consciousness, and emotion. 
The fixity and inevitableness which is, despite the slight variations of 
practice noted by the Peckhams,* pre-eminently characteristic of the behavior 
of the wasps, and the fact that each female is ab ovo adequate to carry through 
the complex train of actions without teaching, experience, or opportunity 
for imitation, practically prove all this seeming marvel of reasoned care for 
the future young to be an inherited instinct incapable of essential modification 
except by the slow process of selection through successive generations. 
Nevertheless, as Sharp well says, the great variety in the habits of the 
species, the extreme industry, skill, and self-denial they display in carrying 
out their voluntary labors, render the solitary wasps one of the most instruc¬ 
tive groups of the animal kingdom “The individuals of one generation 
* Peckham, Geo. W. and Eliz G., On the Instincts and Habits of the Solitary Wasps, 
Bull. 2, Wis. Geol. and Nat. Hist. Survey, 1898. 
