semblance of reason. The Wasp appears to grasp the
relation between cause and effect. The effect is the resistance
experienced in the flight; the cause is the dimensions of the prey
contending with the air. Hence the logical conclusion: those dimensions
must be lessened; the abdomen, the head and, above all, the wings must
be chopped off; and the resistance will be decreased. (I would gladly,
if I were able, cancel some rather hasty lines which I allowed myself
to pen in the first volume of these "Souvenirs" but scripta manent. All
that I can do is to make amends now, in this note, for the error into
which I fell. Relying on Lacordaire, who quotes this instance from
Erasmus Darwin in his own "Introduction a l'entomologie", I believed
that a Sphex was given as the heroine of the story. How could I do
otherwise, not having the original text in front of me? How could I
suspect that an entomologist of Lacordaire's standing should be capable
of such a blunder as to substitute a Sphex for a Common Wasp? Great was
my perplexity, in the face of this evidence! A Sphex capturing a Fly was
an impossibility; and I blamed the British scientist accordingly. But
what insect was it that Erasmus Darwin saw? Calling logic to my aid,
I declared that it was a Wasp; and I could not have hit the mark
more truly. Charles Darwin, in fact, informed me afterwards that his
grandfather wrote 'a Wasp' in his "Zoonomia." Though the correction did
credit to my intelligence, I none the less deeply regretted my mistake,
for I had uttered suspicions of the observer's powers of discernment,
unjust suspicions which the translator's inaccuracy led me into
entertaining. May this note serve to mitigate the harshness of the
strictures provoked by my overtaxed credulity! I do not scruple to
attack ideas which I consider false; but Heaven forfend that I should
ever attack those who uphold them!--Author's Note.)

But does this concatenation of ideas, rudimentary though it be, really
take place within the insect's brain? I am convinced of the contrary;
and my proofs are unanswerable. In the first volume of these "Souvenirs"
(Cf. "Insect Life": chapter 9.--Translator's Note.), I demonstrated
by experiment that Erasmus Darwin's Wasp was but obeying her instinct,
which is to cut up the captured game and to keep only the most
nourishing part, the thorax. Whether the day be perfectly calm or
whether the wind blow, whether she be in the shelter of a dense thicket
or in