In short, a wasp is certainly the heroine of Darwin’s story. What, then, becomes of that reasoning which made the creature, in order better to contend with the wind, deprive its prey of abdomen, head, and wings, leaving only a thorax? It becomes a very simple fact, whence flow none of the great consequences that were drawn from it,—the very trivial fact that a wasp began at once to cut up her prey, and only considered the trunk worthy of her larvæ. Far from discovering the least indication of reasoning, I see only an act of instinct so elementary that it is really not worth consideration. To abase man and exalt animals in order to establish a point of contact, then a point of fusion,—such has been the usual system of the advanced theories now in fashion. Ah! how often do we not find in these sublime theories that are a sickly craze of our day, proofs peremptorily asserted, which under the light of experiment would appear as absurd as the Sphex of the learned Erasmus Darwin! X THE SPHEX OF LANGUEDOC When the chemist has ripely considered his plan of research, he mixes his reactives at whatever moment suits him best, and sets his retorts on the fire. He is master of time, place, and circumstance, chooses his own hour, isolates himself in his laboratory, where he will be undisturbed, and brings about such or such conditions as reflexion may suggest. He is searching out the secrets of brute nature, whose chemical activities science can arouse at will. The secrets of living nature—not those of anatomy, but those of life in action, especially of instinct—offer conditions far more difficult and delicate to the observer. Far from being able to take his own time, he is the slave of season, day, or hour, even of the moment. If an opportunity offer, it must be seized at once—it may be very long ere it comes again. And as it usually comes just when one is thinking least about it, nothing is ready whereby to turn it to account. One must improvise there and then one’s little means of experiment, combine one’s plan, devise one’s wiles, imagine one’s tactics, and feel only too fortunate if inspiration come quickly enough to allow one to profit by the chance offered. Moreover, such chances come only to one who looks out for them, watches for days and days,—here on sandy slopes exposed to the burning sun, there in the cauldron of some path enclosed by high banks, or on some shelf of sandstone, the solidity of which is not always such as to inspire confidence. If it be granted you to set up your observatory under the scanty shade of an olive that you may think will shelter you from a pitiless sun, then bless the fate which is treating you like a sybarite; your lot is in Eden. Above all—keep a sharp lookout. The spot is promising, and who knows? Any moment the chance may come.