More Hunting Wasps

ty of the State; it is also a very childish thing, as I hasten to confess, and worthy of the schoolboy who, in th

, not without some satisfaction, if I had not discerned, in the results obtained in my refe

a plane. The conic section is submitted to algebra, an obstetrical appliance which brings forth the equation; and behold, entreated now in one direction, now in another, the womb of the formula gives birth to the ellipse, the hyperbola, the parabola, their foci, their radius vectors, their tangents,

nt forms which the magic of the calculus converts into explicit forms. The gross value which our mind confided to the equation it returns to us, without loss or gain, in coins stamped with every sort of effigy. And here precisely is that which constitutes the inflexible rigour of the calculu

ng that is real. It must have an ideal material point, an ideal rigid thread, an ideal point of suspension; and then the pendular movement is translated by a formula. But the problem defies all the artifices of analysis if the oscillating body is a real body, endowed wit

section. Yes, it would be magnificent and enough to add a cubit to our stature. Alas, how greatly must we abate our pretensions! The reality is beyond our reach when it is only a matter of following a grain of dust in its fall; and we would undertake to ascend the river of life and trace it to its

seeking the opportunity, which is not my business, I take it when it presents itself; I examine the theory of evolution from every side; and, as that which I

uld replace it. What would become of the Swallow if he required, in order to live, one particular Gnat, a single Gnat, always the same? When once this Gnat had disappeared-and the life of the Mosquito is not a long one-the bird would die of starvation. Fortunately for himself and for the happiness of our homes, the Swal

hus rendered independent of climates, seasons and latitudes. And the Dog: how is it that of all the domestic animals he alone is

g wheat, kneading flour and cooking the paste between two hot stones was more deserving than the discoverer of the two-hundredth asteroid. The invention of the potato is certainly as valuable as that of Neptune, glorious as the latter was. All that increases

ncalculable number of concatenations, from a few amoebae, a few monera and lastly from the first clot of protoplasm which was casually condensed. Let us not go back as far as that; let

e close similarity in form, in colouring and, above all, in habits seem to refer the Tachytes to the same origin. This is ample; let us be satisfied with i

ily magnificently, they being, for that matter, fairly indifferent to the nature of the victuals, provided that these consisted of fresh insect-flesh, as the tastes of their cousins many times removed prove to this day. This matriarch of the Sphex clan bore within herself the best chances of assuring victory to her offspring in that pitiless fight for existence which eliminates the w

n unvarying diet; she hunts only one kind of prey, though her larva accepts them all. One will have nothing but the Ephippiger and must have a female at that; another will ha

is assured; painful and often fruitless searches are avoided; the larder is crammed without being subject to the accidents of time, place and climate. When Ephippigers run short, you fall back upon Crickets; when there are no Crickets,

and constituted into so many distinct species by the slow travail of the centuries, realized that in addition to the ancestral fare there existed a host of other foods. Tradition being abandoned, there was nothing to guide their choice. Th

e of a host of different viands in order to attain the culinary variety which is to-day adopted by the whole of the Sphex nation, lo and behold, each species confines itself to a single sort of game, outside which every specimen is obstinately refused, not at table, of course, but in the hunting-field! By your experi

precursor, whether her tastes were simple or complex, is a pure chimera, for, if they were any relationship between you, having tested everything in order to arrive at the actual food of each species, having eaten everything and found it grateful to the stomach,