portant than
hair; and you neglect them because it is there that the insurmountable
difficulty really resides. See how the great master of evolution
hesitates and stammers when he tries, by fair means or foul, to fit
instinct into the mould of his formulae. It is not so easy to handle as
the colour of the pelt, the length of the tail, the ear that droops or
stands erect. Yes, our master well knows that this is where the shoe
pinches! Instinct escapes him and brings his theory crumbling to the
ground.

Let us return to what the Scoliae teach us on this question, which
incidentally touches on our own origin. In conformity with the Darwinian
ideas, we have accepted an unknown precursor, who by dint of repeated
experiment, adopted as the victuals to be hoarded the larvae of the
Scarabaeidae. This precursor, modified by varying circumstances, is
supposed to have subdivided herself into ramifications, one of which,
digging into vegetable mould and preferring the Cetonia to any other
game inhabiting the same heap, became the Two-banded Scolia; another,
also addicted to exploring the soil, but selecting the Oryctes, left as
its descendant the Garden Scolia; and a third, establishing itself
in sandy ground, where it found the Anoxia, was the ancestress of the
Interrupted Scolia. To these three ramifications we must beyond a doubt
add others which complete the series of the Scolia. As their habits are
known to me only by analogy, I confine myself to mentioning them.

The three species at least, therefore, with which I am familiar would
appear to be derived from a common precursor. To traverse the distance
from the starting-point to the goal, all three have had to contend with
difficulties, which are extremely grave if considered one by one and are
aggravated even more by this circumstance, that the overcoming of one
would lead to nothing unless the others were surmounted as successfully.
Success, then, is contingent upon a series of conditions, each one of
which offers almost no chance of victory, so that the fulfilment of them
all becomes a mathematical absurdity if we are to invoke accident alone.

And, in the first place, how was it that the Scolia of antiquity, having
to provide rations for her carnivorous family, adopted for her prey only
those larvae which, owing to the concentration of their nervous systems,
form so remarkable and so rare an exception in the insect order? What
chance would hazard offer her of obtaining t