cher's family?

I hasten to abandon these insoluble problems in order to attack the
question of provisions from another point of view. Every Hunting Wasp is
confined to a certain genus of game, which is usually strictly limited.
She pursues her appointed quarry and regards anything outside it with
suspicion and distaste. The tricks of the experimenter, who drags her
prey from under her and flings her another in exchange, the emotions of
the possessor deprived of her property and immediately recovering it,
but under another form, are powerless to put her on the wrong scent.
Obstinately she refuses whatever is alien to her portion; instantly
she accepts whatever forms part of it. Whence arises this insuperable
repugnance for provisions to which the family is unaccustomed? Here we
may appeal to experiment. Let us do so: its dictum is the only one that
can be trusted.

The first idea that presents itself and the only one, I think, that can
present itself is that the larva, the carnivorous nurseling, has its
preferences, or we had better say its exclusive tastes. This kind of
game suits it; that does not; and the mother provides it with food in
conformity with its appetites, which are unchangeable in each species.
Here the family dish is the Gad-fly; elsewhere it is the Weevil;
elsewhere again it is the Cricket, the Locust and the Praying Mantis.
Good in themselves, in a general way, these several victuals may be
noxious to a consumer who is not used to them. The larva which dotes on
Locust may find caterpillar a detestable fare; and that which revels
in caterpillar may hold Locust in horror. It would be hard for us to
discover in what manner Cricket-flesh and Ephippiger-flesh differ
as juicy, nourishing foodstuffs; but it does not follow that the two
Sphex-wasps addicted to this diet have not very decided opinions on the
matter, or that each of them is not filled with the highest esteem for
its traditional dish and a profound dislike for the other. There is no
discussing tastes.

Moreover, the question of health may well be involved. There is nothing
to tell us that the Spider, that treat for the Pompilus, is not poison,
or at least unwholesome food, to the Bembex, the lover of Gad-flies;
that the Ammophila's succulent caterpillar is not repugnant to the
stomach of the Sphex fed upon the dry Acridian. The mother's esteem for
one kind of game and her distrust of another would in that case be due
to the likes and dislikes