Natural history -- Nicaragua; Nicaragua -- Description and travel
alighted on a leaf, and ran inside. The green remnant of the
caterpillar was lying on another leaf inside, but not connected
with the one on which the wasp alighted, so that in running in it
missed the object and soon got hopelessly lost in the thick
foliage. Coming out, it took another circle, and pounced down on
the same spot again, as soon as it came opposite to it. Three small
seed-pods, which here grew close together, formed the marks that I
had myself taken to note the place, and these the wasp seemed also
to have taken as its guide, for it flew directly down to them, and
ran inside; but the small leaf on which the fragment of caterpillar
lay, not being directly connected with any on the outside, it again
missed it, and again got far away from the object of its search. It
then flew out again, and the same process was repeated again and
again. Always, when in circling round it came in sight of the
seed-pods, down it pounced, alighted near them, and recommenced its
quest on foot. I was surprised at its perseverance, and thought it
would have given up the search; not so, however, for it returned at
least half-a-dozen times, and seemed to get angry, hurrying about
with buzzing wings. At last it stumbled across its prey, seized it
eagerly, and as there was nothing more to come back for, flew
straight off to its nest, without taking any further note of the
locality. Such an action is not the result of blind instinct, but
of a thinking mind; and it is wonderful to see an insect so
differently constructed using a mental process similar to that of
man. It is suggestive of the probability of many of the actions of
insects that we ascribe to instinct being the result of the
possession of reasoning powers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account