There are philosophical meditations in Fabre’s work, evoked by his observations, and, like his observations, they are not presented in a preconceived order. His arguments are scattered throughout his work. Nowhere in the Souvenirs is there any body of doctrine. They contain only studies of the habits of individual insects; and it is only when he has gathered certain data or made certain experiments that the author gives us his conclusions or explanations or attacks the errors of the theories in vogue. Yet it is not difficult, such is their degree of prominence and continuity, to disengage and synthesise the general ideas scattered throughout this vast collection of facts. We shall make the attempt in order to give the reader at least a glimpse of the writer’s attitude toward the problems of science and of life. From the achievements and actions of the insects, the philosophic mind of the naturalist first of all deduces, very clearly, the general laws of their activity. What strikes us at once is the wonderful degree of knowledge presupposed by certain of their actions: for all that instinct impels the insect to do is marked by perfect wisdom, comparable and even superior to human wisdom. This first law of instinct is brought into especial prominence by the author of the Souvenirs in his study of the Hunting Wasps. These Wasps, which are themselves purely vegetarian, know that their larvæ must have animal food; fresh succulent flesh still quivering with life. Some, like the Common Wasp, which watches over the growth of its offspring, feed the larvæ from day to day, as the bird brings beakfuls of food to its nestlings, and these kill their prey, which they are thus able to serve to their larvæ perfectly fresh.