as though, in creating it, nature had delighted in bestowing
the greatest amount of industry upon the smallest body of matter. Can
the bird, wonderful architect that it is, compare its work with that
masterpiece of higher geometry, the edifice of the Bee? The Hymenopteron
rivals man himself. We build towns, the Bee erects cities; we have
servants, the Ant has hers; we rear domestic animals, she rears her
sugar-yielding insects; we herd cattle, she herds her milch-cows,
the Aphides; we have abolished slavery, whereas she continues her
nigger-traffic.

Well, does this superior, this privileged being reason? Reader, do not
smile: this is a most serious matter, well worthy of our consideration.
To devote our attention to animals is to plunge at once into the vexed
question of who we are and whence we come. What, then, passes in that
little Hymenopteron brain? Has it faculties akin to ours, has it the
power of thought? What a problem, if we could only solve it; what a
chapter of psychology, if we could only write it! But, at our very
first questionings, the mysterious will rise up, impenetrable: we may be
convinced of that. We are incapable of knowing ourselves; what will it
be if we try to fathom the intellect of others? Let us be content if we
succeed in gleaning a few grains of truth.

What is reason? Philosophy would give us learned definitions. Let us be
modest and keep to the simplest: we are only treating of animals. Reason
is the faculty that connects the effect with its cause and directs
the act by conforming it to the needs of the accidental. Within these
limits, are animals capable of reasoning? Are they able to connect
a 'because' with a 'why' and afterwards to regulate their behaviour
accordingly? Are they able to change their line of conduct when faced
with an emergency?

History has but few data likely to be of use to us here; and those which
we find scattered in various authors are seldom able to withstand
a severe examination. One of the most remarkable of which I know is
supplied by Erasmus Darwin, in his book entitled "Zoonomia." It tells of
a Wasp that has just caught and killed a big Fly. The wind is blowing;
and the huntress, hampered in her flight by the great area presented by
her prize, alights on the ground to amputate the abdomen, the head and
the wings; she flies away, carrying with her only the thorax, which
gives less hold to the wind. If we keep to the bald facts, this does,
I admit, give a