The Scolia's egg is in no way exceptional in shape. It is white,
cylindrical, straight and about four millimetres long by one millimetre
thick. (About.156 x.039 inch.--Translator's Note.) It is fixed, by its
fore-end, upon the median line of the victim's abdomen, well to the rear
of the legs, near the beginning of the brown patch formed by the mass of
food under the skin.
I watch the hatching. The grub, still wearing upon its hinder parts the
delicate pellicle which it has just shed, is fixed to the spot to which
the egg itself adhered by its cephalic extremity. A striking spectacle,
that of the feeble creature, only this moment hatched, boring, for
its first mouthful, into the paunch of its enormous prey, which
lies stretched upon its back. The nascent tooth takes a day over the
difficult task. Next morning the skin has yielded; and I find the
new-born larva with its head plunged into a small, round, bleeding
wound.
In size the grub is the same as the egg, whose dimensions I have
just given. Now the Cetonia-larva, to meet the Scolia's requirements,
averages thirty millimetres in length by nine in thickness (1.17 x.35
inch.--Translator's Note.), whence follows that its bulk is six or seven
hundred times as great as that of the newly-hatched grub of the
Scolia. Here certainly is a quarry which, were it active and capable of
wriggling and biting, would expose the nurseling to terrible attacks.
The danger has been averted by the mother's stiletto; and the fragile
grub attacks the monster's paunch with as little hesitation as though it
were sucking the breast.
Day by day the young Scolia's head penetrates farther into the Cetonia's
belly. To pass through the narrow orifice made in the skin, the
fore-part of the body contracts and lengthens out, as though drawn
through a die-plate. The larva thus assumes a rather strange form. Its
hinder half, which is constantly outside the victim's belly, has the
shape and fulness usual in the larvae of the Digger-wasps, whereas the
front half, which, once it has dived under the skin of the exploited
victim, does not come out again until the time arrives for spinning the
cocoon, tapers off suddenly into a snake-like neck. This front part is
moulded, so to speak, by the narrow entrance-hole made in the skin and
henceforth retains its slender formation. As a matter of fact, a
similar configuration recurs, in varying degrees, in the larvae of the
Digger-wasps whose ration consists of a bulky quarry which takes a
long time to consume. These include the Languedocian Sphex, with her
Ephippiger, and the Hairy Ammophila, with her Grey Worm. There is none
of this sudden constriction, dividing the creature into two disparate
halves, when the victuals consist of numerous and comparatively small
items. The larva then retains its usual shape, being obliged to pass, at
brief intervals, from one joint in its larder to the next.
From the first bite of the mandibles, until the whole head of game is
consumed, the Scolia-larva is never seen to withdraw its head and its
long neck from inside the creature which it is devouring. I suspect the
reason of this persistence in attacking a single point; I even seem
to perceive the need for a special art in the manner of eating. The
Cetonia-larva is a square meal in itself, one large dish, which has to
retain a suitable freshness until the end. The young Scolia, therefore,
must attack with discretion, at the unvarying point chosen by the mother
on the ventral surface, for the entrance-hole is at the exact point
where the egg was fixed. As the nurseling's neck lengthens and dives
deeper, the victim's entrails are nibbled gradually and methodically:
first, the least essential; next, those whose removal leaves yet a
remnant of life; lastly, those whose loss inevitably entails death,
followed very soon by putrefaction.
At the first bites we see the victim's blood oozing through the wound.
It is a highly-elaborated fluid, easy of digestion, and forms a sort of
milk-diet for the new-born grub. The little ogre's teat is the bleeding
paunch of the Cetonia-larva. The latter will not die of the wound,
at least not for some time. The next thing to be tackled is the fatty
substance which wraps the internal organs in its delicate folds. This
again is a loss which the Cetonia can suffer without dying then and
there. Now comes the turn of the muscular layer which lines the skin;
now, that of the essential organs; now, that of the nerve-centres and
the trachean network, whereupon the last gleam of light is extinguished
and the Cetonia reduced to a mere bag, empty but intact, save for the
entrance-hole made in the middle of the belly. From now onwards, these
remains may rot if they will: the Scolia, by its methodical fashion of
consuming its victuals, has succeeded in keeping them fresh to the very
last; and now you may see it, replete, shining with health, withdraw its
long neck from the bag of skin and prepare to weave the cocoon in which
its development will be completed.
It is possible that I may not be quite accurate as to the precise order
in which the organs are consumed, for it is not easy to perceive what
happens inside the exploited larva's body. The ruling feature in this
scientific method of eating, which proceeds from the parts less to the
parts more necessary to preserve a remnant of life, is none the less
obvious. If direct observation did not already to some degree confirm
it, a mere examination of the half-eaten larva would do so in the most
positive fashion.
The Cetonia-larva is at first a plump grub. Drained by the Scolia's
tooth, it gradually becomes limp and wrinkled. In a few days' time it
resembles a shrivelled bit of bacon-fat and then a bag whose two
sides have fallen in. Yet this bit of bacon and this bag have the same
characteristic look of fresh meat as had the grub before it was bitten
into. Despite the persistent nibbling of the Scolia, life continues,
holding at bay the inroads of putrefaction until the mandibles have
given their last bites. Does not this remnant of tenacious vitality in
itself show that the organs of primary importance are the last to be
attacked? Does it not prove that there is a progressive dismemberment
passing from the less essential to the indispensable?
Would you like to see what becomes of a Cetonia-larva when the organism
is wounded in its vital centres at the very beginning? The experiment
is an easy one; and I made a point of trying it. A sewing-needle, first
softened and flattened into a blade, then retempered and sharpened,
gives me a most delicate scalpel. With this instrument I make a fine
incision, through which I remove the mass of nerves whose remarkable
structure we shall soon have occasion to study. The thing is done: the
wound, which does not look serious, has left the creature a corpse, a
real corpse. I lay my victim on a bed of moist earth, in a jar with a
glass lid; in fact, I establish it in the same conditions as those of
the larvae on which the Scoliae feed. By the next day, without changing
shape, it has turned a repulsive brown; presently it dissolves into
noisome putrescence. On the same bed of earth, under the same glass
cover, in the same moist, warm atmosphere, the larvae three-quarters
eaten by the Scoliae retain, on the contrary, the appearance of healthy
flesh.
If a single stroke of my dagger, fashioned from the point of a needle,
results in immediate death and early putrefaction; if the repeated bites
of the Scolia gut the creature's body and reduce it almost to a skin
without completely killing it, the striking contrast between these two
results must be due to the relative importance of the organs injured. I
destroy the nerve-centres and inevitably kill my larva, which is putrid
by the following day; the Scolia attacks the reserves of fat, the blood,
the muscles and does not kill its victim, which will provide it with
wholesome food until the end. But it is clear that, if the Scolia were
to set to work as I did, there would be nothing left, after the first
few bites, but an actual corpse, discharging fluids which would be fatal
to it within twenty-four hours. The mother, it is true, in order to
assure the immobility of her prey, has injected the poison of her sting
into the nerve-centres. Her operation cannot be compared with mine in
any respect. She practises the method of the skilful physiologist who
induces anaesthesia; I go to work like the butcher who chops, cuts and
disembowels. The sting leaves the nerve-centres intact. Deprived
of sensibility by the poison, they have lost the power of provoking
muscular contractions; but who can say that, numbed as they are, they
no longer serve to maintain a faint vitality? The flame is extinguished,
but there is still a glowing speck upon the wick. I, a rough blunderer,
do more than blow out the lamp: I throw away the wick and all is over.
The grub would do the same if it bit straight into the mass of nerves.
Everything confirms the fact: the Scolia and the other Hunting Wasps
whose provisions consist of bulky heads of game are gifted with a
special art of eating, an exquisitely delicate art which saves a remnant
of life in the prey devoured, until it is all consumed. When the prey is
a small one, this precaution is superfluous. Consider, for instance, the
Bembex-grubs in the midst of their heap of Flies. The prey seized upon
is broached on the back, the belly, the head, the thorax, indifferently.
The larva munches a given spot, which it leaves to munch a second,
passing to a third and a fourth, at the bidding of its changing whims.
It seems to taste and select, by repeated trials, the mouthfuls most to
its liking. Thus bitton at several points, covered with wounds, the Fly
is soon a shapeless mass which would putrefy very quickly if the meagre
dish were not devoured at a single meal. Allow the Scolia-grub the same
unlicensed gluttony: it would perish beside its corpulent victim,
which should have kept fresh for a fortnight, but which almost from the
beginning would be no more than a filthy putrescence.
This art of careful eating does not seem easy to practise: at least, the
larva, if ever so little diverted from its usual courses, is no longer
able to apply its talent as a capable trencherman. This will be proved
by experiment. I must begin by observing that, when I spoke of my larva
which turned putrid within twenty-four hours, I adopted an extreme case
for the sake of greater clearness. The Scolia, taking its first bite,
does not and cannot go to such lengths. Nevertheless it behooves us to
enquire whether, in the consumption of the victuals, the initial point
of attack is a matter of indifference and whether the rummaging through
the entrails of the victim entails a determined order, without which
success is uncertain or even impossible. To these delicate questions no
one, I think, can reply. Where science is silent, perhaps the grub will
speak. We will try.
I move from its position a Scolia-grub which has attained a quarter or a
third of its full growth. The long neck plunged into the victim's belly
is rather difficult to extract, because of the need of molesting the
creature as little as possible. I succeed, by means of a little patience
and repeated strokes with the tip of a paint-brush. I now turn the
Cetonia-larva over, back uppermost, at the bottom of the little hollow
made by pressing my finger in the layer of mould. Lastly, I place the
Scolia on its victim's back. Here is my grub under the same conditions
as just now, with this difference, that the back and not the belly of
its victim is presented to its mandibles.
I watch it for a whole afternoon. It writhes about; it moves its little
head now in this direction, now in that, frequently laying it on the
Cetonia, but without fixing it anywhere. The day draws to a close; and
still it has accomplished nothing. There are restless movements, nothing
more. Hunger, I tell myself, will eventually induce it to bite. I am
wrong. Next morning I find it more anxious than the day before and still
groping about, without resolving to fix its mandibles anywhere. I
leave it alone for half a day longer without obtaining any result. Yet
twenty-four hours of abstinence must have awakened a good appetite,
above all in a creature which, if left undisturbed, would not have
ceased eating.
Excessive hunger cannot induce it to nibble at an unlawful spot. Is this
due to feebleness of the teeth? By no means: the Cetonia's skin is no
tougher on the back than on the belly; moreover, the grub is capable of
perforating the skin when it leaves the egg; a fortiori, it must be more
capable of doing so now that it has attained a sturdy growth. Thus we
see no lack of ability, but an obstinate refusal to nibble at a point
which ought to be respected. Who knows? On this side perhaps the grub's
dorsal vessel would be wounded, its heart, an organ indispensable to
life. The fact remains that my attempts to make the grub tackle its
victim from the back have failed. Does this mean that it entertains the
least suspicion of the danger which it might incur were it to produce
putrefaction by awkwardly carving its victuals from the back? It would
be absurd to give such an idea a moment's consideration. Its refusal is
dictated by a preordained decree which it is bound to obey.
My Scolia-grubs would die of starvation if I left them on their victim's
back. I therefore restore matters as they were, with the Cetonia-larva
belly uppermost and the young Scolia on top. I might utilise the
subjects of my previous experiments; but, as I have to take precautions
against the disturbance which may have been caused by the test already
undergone, I prefer to operate on new patients, a luxury in which the
richness of my menagerie allows me to indulge. I move the Scolia from
its position, extract its head from the entrails of the Cetonia-larva
and leave it to its own resources on its victim's belly. Betraying every
symptom of uneasiness, the grub gropes, hesitates, casts about and does
not insert its mandibles anywhere, though it is now the ventral surface
which it is exploring. It would not display greater hesitation if placed
on the back of the larva. I repeat, who knows? On this side it might
perhaps injure the nervous plexus, which is even more essential than the
dorsal vessel. The inexperienced grub must not drive in its mandibles at
random; its future is jeopardized if it gives a single ill-judged bite.
If it gnaws at the spot where I myself operated with my needle wrought
into a scalpel, its victuals will very soon turn putrid. Once more,
then, we witness an absolute refusal to perforate the skin of the victim
elsewhere than at the very point where the egg was fixed.
The mother selects this point, which is undoubtedly that most favourable
to the future prosperity of the larva, though I am not able clearly to
discern the reasons for her choice; she fixes the egg to it; and the
place where the opening is to be made is henceforth determined. It is
here that the grub must bite: only here, never elsewhere. Its invincible
refusal to tackle the Cetonia in any other part, even though it should
die of starvation, shews us how rigorous is the rule of conduct with
which its instinct is inspired.
As it gropes about, the grub laid on the victim's ventral surface sooner
or later rediscovers the gaping wound from which I have removed it. If
this takes too long for my patience, I can myself guide its head to the
place with the point of a paint-brush. The grub then recognizes the hole
of its own making, slips its neck into it and little by little dives
into the Cetonia's belly, so that the original state of affairs appears
to be exactly restored. And yet its successful rearing is henceforth
highly problematical. It is possible that the larva will prosper,
complete its development and spin its cocoon; it is also possible--and
the case is not unusual--that the Cetonia-larva will soon turn brown
and putrid. We then see the Scolia itself turn brown, distended as it
is with putrescent foodstuffs, and then cease all movement, without
attempting to withdraw from the sanies. It dies on the spot, poisoned by
its excessively high game.
What can be the meaning of this sudden corruption of the victuals,
followed by the death of the Scolia, when everything appeared to have
returned to its normal condition? I see only one explanation.
Disturbed in its activities and diverted from its usual courses by
my interference, the grub, when replaced on the wound from which I
extracted it, was unable to rediscover the lode at which it was working
a few minutes earlier; it thrust its way at random into the victim's
entrails; and a few untimely bites extinguished the last sparks of
vitality. Its confusion rendered it clumsy; and the mistake cost it its
life. It dies poisoned by the rich food which, if consumed according to
the rules, should have made it grow plump and lusty.
I was anxious to observe the deadly effects of a disturbed meal in
another fashion. This time the victim itself shall disorder the grub's
activities. The Cetonia-larva, as served up to the young Scolia by its
mother, is profoundly paralysed. Its inertia is complete and so striking
that it constitutes one of the leading features of this narrative. But
we will not anticipate. For the moment, the thing is to substitute for
this inert larva a similar larva, but one not paralysed, one very much
alive. To ensure that it shall not double up and crush the grub, I
confine myself to reducing it to helplessness, leaving it otherwise just
as I extracted it from its burrow. I must also be careful of its legs
and mandibles, the least touch of which would rip open the nurseling.
With a few turns of the finest wire I fix it to a little slab of cork,
with its belly in the air. Next, to provide the grub with a ready-made
hole, knowing that it will refuse to make one for itself, I contrive a
slight incision in the skin, at the point where the Scolia lays her egg.
I now place the grub upon the larva, with its head touching the bleeding
wound, and lay the whole on a bed of mould in a transparent beaker
protected by a pane of glass.
Unable to move, to wriggle, to scratch with its legs or snap with
its mandibles, the Cetonia-larva, a new Prometheus bound, offers
its defenceless flanks to the little Vulture destined to devour its
entrails. Without too much hesitation, the young Scolia settles down
to the wound made by my scalpel, which to the grub represents the wound
whence I have just removed it. It thrusts its neck into the belly of
its prey; and for a couple of days all seems to go well. Then, lo and
behold, the Cetonia turns putrid and the Scolia dies, poisoned by the
ptomaines of the decomposing game! As before, I see it turn brown and
die on the spot, still half inside the toxic corpse.
The fatal issue of my experiment is easily explained. The Cetonia-larva
is alive in every sense. True, I have, by means of bonds, suppressed its
outward movements, in order to provide the nurseling with a quiet meal,
devoid of danger; but it was not in my power to subdue its internal
movements, the quivering of the viscera and muscles irritated by its
forced immobility and by the Scolia's bites. The victim is in possession
of its full power of sensation; and it expresses the pain experienced
as best it may, by contractions. Embarrassed by these tremors, these
twitches of suffering flesh, incommoded at every mouthful, the grub
chews away at random and kills the larva almost as soon as it has
started on it. In a victim paralysed by the regulation sting, the
conditions would be very different. There are no external movements,
nor any internal movements either, when the mandibles bite, because the
victim is insensible. The grub, undisturbed in any way, is then able,
with an unfaltering tooth, to pursue its scientific method of eating.
These marvellous results interested me too much not to inspire me with
fresh devices when I pursued my investigations. Earlier enquiries had
taught me that the larvae of the Digger-wasps are fairly indifferent to
the nature of the game, though the mother always supplies them with the
same diet. I had succeeded in rearing them on a great variety of prey,
without paying regard to their normal fare. I shall return to this
subject later, when I hope to demonstrate its great philosophical
significance. Let us profit by these data and try to discover what
happens when we give the Scolia food which is not properly its own.
I select from my heap of garden-mould, that inexhaustible mine, two
larvae of the Rhinoceros Beetle, Oryctes nasicornis, about one-third
full-grown, so that their size may not be out of proportion to the
Scolia's. It is in fact almost identical with the size of the Cetonia.
I paralyse one of them by giving an injection of ammonia in the
nerve-centres. I make a fine incision in its belly and I place the
Scolia on the opening. The dish pleases my charge; and it would
be strange indeed if this were not so, considering that another
Scolia-grub, the larva of the Garden Scolia, feeds on the Oryctes.
The dish suits it, for before long it has burrowed half-way into
the succulent paunch. This time all goes well. Will the rearing be
successful? Not a bit of it! On the third day, the Oryctes decomposes
and the Scolia dies. Which shall we hold responsible for the failure,
myself or the grub? Myself who, perhaps too unskilfully, administered
the injection of ammonia, or the grub which, a novice at dissecting a
prey differing from its own, did not know how to practise its craft upon
a changed victim and began to bite before the proper time?
In my uncertainty, I try again. This time I shall not interfere, so that
my clumsiness cannot be to blame. As I described when speaking of the
Cetonia-larva, the Oryctes-larva now lies bound, quite alive, on a strip
of cork. As usual, I make a small opening in the belly, to entice the
grub by means of a bleeding wound and facilitate its access. I obtain
the same negative result. In a little while, the Oryctes is a noisome
mass on which the nurseling lies poisoned. The failure was foreseen: to
the difficulties presented by a prey unknown to my charge was added the
commotion caused by the wriggling of an unparalysed animal.
We will try once more, this time with a victim paralysed not by me, an
unskilled operator, but by an adept whose ability ranks so high that it
is beyond discussion. Chance favours me to perfection: yesterday, in a
warm sheltered corner, at the foot of a sandy bank, I discovered three
cells of the Languedocian Sphex, each with its Ephippiger and the
recently laid egg. This is the game I want, a corpulent prey, of a
size suited to the Scolia and, what is more, in splendid condition,
artistically paralysed according to rule by a master among masters.
As usual, I install my three Ephippigers in a glass jar, on a bed of
mould; I remove the egg of the Sphex and on each victim, after slightly
incising the skin of the belly, I place a young Scolia-grub. For three
or four days my charges feed upon this game, so novel to them, without
any sign of repugnance or hesitation. By the fluctuations of the
digestive canal I perceive that the work of nutrition is proceeding
as it should; things are happening just as if the dish were a
Cetonia-larva. The change of diet, complete though it is, has in no way
affected the appetite of the Scolia-grubs. But this prosperous condition
does not last long. About the fourth day, a little sooner in one case,
a little later in another, the three Ephippigers become putrid and the
Scoliae die at the same time.
This result is eloquent. Had I left the egg of the Sphex to hatch, the
larva coming out of it would have fed upon the Ephippiger; and for the
hundredth time I should have witnessed an incomprehensible spectacle,
that of an animal which, devoured piecemeal for nearly a fortnight,
grows thin and empty, shrivels up and yet retains to the very end the
freshness peculiar to living flesh. Substitute for this Sphex-larva a
Scolia-larva of almost the same size; let the dish be the same though
the guest is different; and healthy live flesh is promptly replaced
by pestilent rotten flesh. That which under the mandibles of the Sphex
would for a long while have remained wholesome food promptly becomes a
poisonous liquescence under the mandibles of the Scolia.
It is impossible to explain the preservation of the victuals until
finally consumed by supposing that the venom injected by the Wasp when
she delivers her paralysing stings possesses antiseptic properties.
The three Ephippigers were operated on by the Sphex. Able to keep fresh
under the mandibles of the Sphex-larvae, why did they promptly go bad
under the mandibles of the Scolia-larvae? Any idea of an antiseptic must
needs be rejected: a liquid preservative which would act in the first
case could not fail to act in the second, as its virtues would not
depend on the teeth of the consumer.
Those of you who are versed in the knowledge attaching to this problem,
investigate, I beg you, search, sift, see if you can discover the reason
why the victuals keep fresh when consumed by a Sphex, whereas they
promptly become putrid when consumed by a Scolia. For me, I see only one
reason; and I very much doubt whether any one can suggest another.
Both larvae practise a special art of eating, which is determined by the
nature of the game. The Sphex, when sitting down to an Ephippiger, the
food that has fallen to its lot, knows thoroughly how to consume it and
how to preserve, to the very end, the glimmer of life which keeps it
fresh; but, if it has to browse upon a Cetonia-grub, whose different
structure would confuse its talents as a dissector, it would soon have
nothing before it but a heap of putrescence. The Scolia, in its turn,
is familiar with the method of eating the Cetonia-grub, its invariable
portion; but it does not understand the art of eating the Ephippiger,
though the dish is to its taste. Unable to dissect this unknown species
of game, its mandibles slash away at random, killing the creature
outright as soon as they take their first bites of the deeper tissues of
the victim. That is the whole secret.
One more word, on which I shall enlarge in another chapter. I observe
that the Scoliae to which I give Ephippigers paralysed by the Sphex
keep in excellent condition, despite the change of diet, so long as
the provisions retain their freshness. They languish when the game goes
high; and they die when putridity supervenes. Their death, therefore,
is due not to an unaccustomed diet, but to poisoning by one or other
of those terrible toxins which are engendered by animal corruption
and which chemistry calls by the name of ptomaines. Therefore,
notwithstanding the fatal outcome of my three attempts, I remain
persuaded that the unfamiliar method of rearing would have been
perfectly successful had the Ephippigers not gone bad, that is, if the
Scoliae had known how to eat them according to the rules.
What a delicate and dangerous thing is the art of eating in these
carnivorous larvae supplied with a single victim, which they have to
spend a fortnight in consuming, on the express condition of not killing
it until the very end! Could our physiological science, of which, with
good reason, we are so proud, describe, without blundering, the method
to be followed in the successive mouthfuls? How has a miserable grub
learnt what our knowledge cannot tell us? By habit, the Darwinians will
reply, who see in instinct an acquired habit.
Before deciding this serious matter, I will ask you to reflect that the
first Wasp, of whatever kind, that thought of feeding her progeny on
a Cetonia-grub or on any other large piece of game demanding long
preservation could necessarily have left no descendants unless the art
of consuming food without causing putrescence had been practised, with
all its scrupulous caution, from the first generation onwards. Having as
yet learnt nothing by habit or by atavistic transmission, since it was
making a first beginning, the nurseling would bite into its provender at
random. It would be starving, it would have no respect for its prey.
It would carve its joint at random; and we have just seen the fatal
consequence of an ill-directed bite. It would perish--I have just proved
this in the most positive manner--it would perish, poisoned by its
victim, already dead and putrid.
To prosper, it would have, although a novice, to know what was permitted
and what forbidden in ransacking the creature's entrails; nor would
it be enough for the larva to be approximately in possession of this
difficult secret: it would be indispensable that it should possess the
secret completely, for a single bite, if delivered before the right
moment, would inevitably involve its own demise. The Scoliae of my
experiments are not novices, far from it: they are the descendants of
carvers that have practised their art since Scoliae first came into
the world; nevertheless they all perish from the decomposition of the
rations supplied, when I try to feed them on Ephippigers paralysed by
the Sphex. Very expert in the method of attacking the Cetonia, they do
not know how to set about the business of discreetly consuming a species
of game new to them. All that escapes them is a few details, for the
trade of an ogre fed on live flesh is familiar to them in its general
features; and these unheeded details are enough to turn their food into
poison. What, then, happened in the beginning, when the larva bit
for the first time into a luscious victim? The inexperienced creature
perished; of that there is not a shadow of doubt, unless we admit an
absurdity and imagine the larva of antiquity feeding upon those terrible
ptomaines which so swiftly kill its descendants to-day.
Nothing will ever make me admit and no unprejudiced mind can admit
that what was once food has become a horrible poison. What the larva of
antiquity ate was live flesh and not putrescence. Nor can it be admitted
that the chances of fortune can have led at the first trial to success
in a system of nourishment so full of pit-falls: fortuitous results are
preposterous amid so many complications. Either the feeding is strictly
methodical at the beginning, in conformity with the organic exigencies
of the prey devoured, and the Wasp established her race; or else it was
hesitating, without determined rules, and the Wasp left no successor. In
the first case we behold innate instinct; in the second acquired habit.
A strange acquisition, truly! An acquisition presumed to be made by
an impossible creature; an acquisition supposed to develop in no less
impossible successors! Though the snow-ball, slowly rolling, at
last becomes an enormous sphere, it is still necessary that the
starting-point shall not have been NIL. The big ball implies the little
ball, as small as you please. Now, in harking back to the origin of
these acquired habits, if I interrogate the possibilities I obtain zero
as the only answer. If the animal does not know its trade thoroughly,
if it has to acquire something, all the more if it has to acquire
everything, it perishes: that is inevitable; without the little
snow-ball the big snow-ball cannot be rolled. If it has nothing to
acquire, if it knows all that it needs to know, it flourishes and
leaves descendants behind it. But then it possesses innate instinct, the
instinct which learns nothing and forgets nothing, the instinct which is
steadfast throughout time.
The building up of theories has never appealed to me: I suspect them one
and all. To argue nebulously upon dubious premises likes me no better. I
observe, I experiment and I let the facts speak for themselves. We have
just heard these facts. Let each now decide for himself whether instinct
is an innate faculty or an acquired habit.