, though the larva shows itself
satisfied with other fare provided by myself. Its forebears were brought
up on Spiders; their descendants consumed similar food; and their
posterity again will know no other. Not a single circumstance, however
favourable, will ever persuade the Pelopaeus that young Crickets, for
instance, are as good as Spiders and that her family would accept them
gladly. Instinct binds her down to the national diet.

But, should the Epeira (The Weaving or Garden Spider. Cf. "The Life
of the Spider" by J. Henri Fabre translated by Alexander Teixeira
de Mattos; chapters 9 to 14 and appendix.--Translator's Note.), the
favourite prey, be lacking, must the Pelopaeus therefore give up
foraging? She will stock her warehouses all the same, because any Spider
suits her. There you have discernment, whose elasticity makes up, in
certain circumstances, for the too-great rigidity of instinct. Amid the
innumerable variety of game, the huntress is able to discern between
what is Spider and what is not; and, in this way, she is always prepared
to supply her family, without quitting the domain of her instinct.

The Hairy Ammophila gives her larva a single caterpillar, a large one,
paralysed by as many pricks of her sting as it has nervous centres in
its thorax and abdomen. Her surgical skill in subduing the monster is
instinct displayed in a form which makes short work of any inclination
to see in it an acquired habit. In an art that can leave no one to
practise it in the future unless that one be perfect at the outset, of
what avail are happy chances, atavistic tendencies, the mellowing hand
of time? But the grey caterpillar, sacrificed one day, may be succeeded
on another day by a green, yellow or striped caterpillar. There you have
discernment, which is quite capable of recognizing the regulation prey
under very diverse garbs.

The Megachiles build their honey-jars with disks cut out of leaves;
certain Anthidia make felted cotton wallets; others fashion pots out
of resin. There you have instinct. Will any rash mind ever conceive the
singular idea that the Leaf-cutter might very well have started working
in cotton, that the cotton-wool-worker once thought or will one
day think of cutting disks out of the leaves of the lilac- and the
rose-tree, that the resin-kneader began with clay? Who would dare to
indulge in any such theories? Each Bee has her art, her medium, to which
she strictly confines herself. The first has