We can well understand that, in the course of innumerable generations and species of insects, the various stages of development would, by means of selection, become more and more different from each other, both structurally and in their instincts, as they adapted themselves better to different conditions of life; and thus ultimately instincts frequently and markedly divergent have been developed in the successive stages of life. No other interpretation is possible; through natural selection alone can we understand even the principle of such adaptations. An animal can thus very well be compared to a machine which is so arranged that it works correctly under all ordinary circumstances, that is to say, it performs all the actions necessary to the preservation of the individual and of its kind. The parts of the machine are fitted together in the best possible way, and work on each other so ingeniously that, under normal circumstances, a result suited to the end is achieved. We have seen how precisely the liberating stimulus for an action may be defined, and this secures a far-reaching specialization of instincts. But as every machine can work only with the material for which it was constructed, so the instinct can only call forth an action effectively adjusted to its end when the animal is under natural conditions. Its specialization has its limits, and in this lies the reason of its limited purposiveness. For instance, if the larva of _Sitaris_ were not impelled by the sight of every bee to spring on it and cling to it, but only by the _females_, then many of them would be saved from the fate that awaits them if they attach themselves to male bees, which make no nest, or even to other flying insects, in which case also there is no possibility of further development. But both these things happen, although the latter has not yet, to my knowledge, been recorded of _Sitaris_, but only of its relative, the larva of _Melöe_.