Animal Intelligence Part 16

This aperture was sufficient, and only just sufficient, to admit of the ingress or egress of a single wasp. The circ.u.mstance which struck me as very remarkable was this--that the wasp did not make its way through the aperture with its head first, as I should have expected, but with its tail, darting out its sting to its utmost extent, and brandishing it furiously. In this manner it came out of the apple backwards. Then, finding itself in the open air upon the outer surface of the apple, it turned round, and without any attempt to molest me, flew off in the usual way. The moment this first wasp had emerged, the sting and tail of another was seen protruding. This, too, I watched with much interest, and exactly the same process was repeated as in the case of the first.

I held the apple in my hand until some ten or a dozen wasps had made their exit in the same identical manner in each individual case. I then threw down the apple, inside of which, however, there were still apparently a good many wasps.

It seemed to me at the time, and I have always felt since, that the wasps coming out of the apple backwards, brandishing their stings as a defensive weapon against possible enemies, whom of course they were not able to see, was an evidence of what would be called thought and reflection in the case of human beings. It seems to me that these wasps must have reflected that if they came out of the narrow aperture in the apple, which was their only possible means of ready egress, in the usual manner, head first, they might be taken at a disadvantage by a possible enemy, and destroyed in detail. They, therefore, with great prudence and foresight, came out of the apple backwards, protecting themselves by means of their chief offensive and defensive weapons, their stings, which, according to their normal method of locomotion, would have been useless to them as long as they were making their exit.

With regard to the tactics displayed by hunting wasps I may quote the following cases:--

Mr. Seth Green, writing to the _New York World_ of May 14, says that one morning when he was watching a spider's nest, a wasp alighted within an inch or two of the nest, on the side opposite the opening.

Creeping noiselessly around towards the entrance of the nest the wasp stopped a little short of it, and for a moment remained perfectly quiet; then reaching out one of his antennae he wriggled it before the opening and withdrew it. This overture had the desired effect, for the boss of the nest, as large a spider as one ordinarily sees, came out to see what was wrong and to set it to rights. No sooner had the spider emerged to that point at which he was at the worst disadvantage than the wasp, with a quick movement, thrust his sting into the body of his foe, killing him easily and almost instantly. The experiment was repeated on the part of the wasp, and when there was no response from the inside he became satisfied, probably, that he held the fort. At all events, he proceeded to enter the nest and slaughter the young spiders, which were afterwards lugged off one at a time.

Mr. Henry Cecil writes as follows (_Nature_, vol. xviii., p. 311):--

I was sitting one summer's afternoon at an open window (my bedroom) looking into a garden, when I was surprised to observe a large and rare species of spider run across the window-sill in a crouching att.i.tude. It struck me the spider was evidently alarmed, or it would not have so fearlessly approached me. It hastened to conceal itself under the projecting ledge of the window-sill inside the room, and had hardly done so when a very fine large hunting wasp buzzed in at the open window and flew about the room, evidently in search of something. Finding nothing, the wasp returned to the open window and settled on the window-sill, running backwards and forwards as a dog does when looking or searching for a lost scent. It soon alighted on the track of the poor spider, and in a moment it discovered its hiding-place, darted down on it, and no doubt inflicted a wound with its sting.

The spider rushed off again, and this time took refuge under the bed, trying to conceal itself under the framework or planks which supported the mattress. The same scene occurred here; the wasp now appeared to follow the spider by sight, but ran backwards and forwards in large circles like a hound. The moment the trail of the spider was found the wasp followed all the turns it had made till it came on it again. The poor spider was chased from hiding-place to hiding-place, out of the bedroom, across a pa.s.sage, and into the middle of another large room, where it finally succ.u.mbed to the repeated stings inflicted by the wasp. Rolling itself up into a ball the wasp then took possession of its prey, and after ascertaining it could make no resistance, tucked it up under its _very long hind legs_, just as a hawk or eagle carries off its quarry, when I interposed and secured both for my collection.

Mr. Belt, in his work already frequently quoted, gives the following account of a struggle which not unfrequently occurs between wasps and ants for the sweet secretion of 'frog-hoppers:'--

Similarly as, on the savannahs, I had observed a wasp attending the honey-glands of the bull's-horn acacia along with the ants; so at Santo Domingo another wasp, belonging to quite a different genus (_Nectarina_), attended some of the cl.u.s.ters of frog-hoppers, and for the possession of others a constant skirmishing was going on. The wasp stroked the young hoppers, and sipped up the honey when it was exuded, just like the ants. When an ant came up to a cl.u.s.ter of leaf-hoppers attended by a wasp, the latter would not attempt to grapple with its rival on the leaf, but would fly off and hover over the ant; then when its little foe was well exposed, it would dart at it and strike it to the ground. The action was so quick that I could not determine whether it struck with its fore-feet or its jaws; but I think it was with the feet. I often saw a wasp trying to clear a leaf from ants that were already in full possession of a cl.u.s.ter of leaf-hoppers. It would sometimes have to strike three or four times at an ant before it made it quit its hold and fall. At other times one ant after the other would be struck off with great celerity and ease, and I fancied that some wasps were much cleverer than others. In those cases where it succeeded in clearing the leaf, it was never left long in peace; for fresh relays of ants were continually arriving, and generally tired the wasp out. It would never wait for an ant to get near it, doubtless knowing well that if its little rival once fastened on its leg, it would be a difficult matter to get rid of it again. If a wasp first obtained possession, it was able to keep it; for the first ants that came up were only pioneers, and by knocking these off, it prevented them from returning and scenting the trail to communicate the intelligence to others.

Dr. Erasmus Darwin records an observation ('Zoonomia,' i., p. 183) which, from having since been so widely quoted, deserves to be called cla.s.sical. He saw a wasp upon the ground endeavouring to remove a large fly which was too heavy for it to carry off. The wasp cut off the head and abdomen, and flew away with the thorax alone. The wind, however, catching the wings of this portion made it still too unwieldy for the wasp to guide. It therefore again alighted, and nipped off first one wing and then the other, when it was able to fly off with its booty without further difficulty.

This observation has since been amply confirmed. I shall quote some of the confirmatory cases.

Mr. R. S. Newall, F.R.S., in _Nature_, vol. xxi., p. 494, says:--

Many years ago I was examining an apple tree, when a wasp alighted on a leaf which formed a caterpillar's nest neatly rolled up. The wasp examined both ends, and finding them closed, it soon clipped a hole in the leaf at one end of the nest about one-eighth of an inch in diameter. It then went to the other end and made a noise which frightened the caterpillar, which came rushing out of the hole. It was immediately seized by the wasp, who finding it too large to carry off at once, cut it in two and went off with his game.

I waited a little and saw the wasp come back for the other half, with which it also flew away.

Again, Buchner (_loc. cit._, p. 297) gives the following account in the words of his informant, Herr H. Lowenfels, who himself witnessed the incident:--

I here found a robber-wasp busied in lifting from the ground a large fly which it had apparently killed. It succeeded indeed in its attempt, but had scarcely raised its prey a few inches above the ground when the wind caught the wings of the dead fly, and they began to act like a sail. The wasp was clearly unable to resist this action, and was blown a little distance in the direction of the wind, whereupon it let itself fall to the ground with its prize. It now made no more attempts to fly, but with eager industry pulled off with its teeth the fly's wings which hindered it in its object. When this was quite done it seized the fly, which was heavier than itself, and flew off with it untroubled on its journey through the air at a height of about five feet.

Buchner also records the two following remarkable observations, which from being so similar corroborate one another. The first is received from Herr Albert Schluter, who writing from Texas says that he there saw a cicada pursued by a large hornet, which threw itself upon its prey and seemed to sting it to death:--

The murderer walked over its prey, which was considerably larger than itself, grasped its body with its feet, spread out its wings, and tried to fly away with it. Its strength was not sufficient, and after many efforts it gave up the attempt. Half a minute went by; sitting astride on the corpse and motionless--only the wings occasionally jerking--it seems to reflect, and indeed not in vain. A mulberry tree stood close by, really only a trunk--for the top had been broken off, clearly by the last flood--of about ten or twelve feet high. The hornet saw this trunk, dragged its prey toilsomely to the foot of it, and then up to the top. Arrived thereat, it rested for a moment, grasped its victim firmly, and flew off with it to the prairies. That which it was unable to raise off the ground it could now carry easily once high in the air.

The other instance is as follows:--

Th. Meenan ('Proc. of the Acad. of Nat.,'

Philadelphia, Jan. 22, 1878) observed a very similar case with _Vespa maculata_. He saw one of these wasps try in vain to raise from the ground a gra.s.shopper it had killed. When all its efforts proved to be in vain, it pulled its prey to a maple tree, about thirty feet off, mounted it with its prize, and flew away from it.

'This,' adds the writer, 'was more than instinct. It was reflection and judgment, and the judgment was proved to be correct.'

Depriving bees of their antennae has the effect of producing an even more marked bewilderment than results from this operation in the case of ants. A queen thus mutilated by Huber ran about in confusion, dropping her eggs at random, and appeared unable to take with precision the food that was offered her. She showed no resentment to a similarly mutilated stranger queen that was introduced: the workers also heeded not the mutilated stranger; but when an unmutilated stranger was introduced they fell upon her. When the mutilated queen was allowed to escape, none of the workers followed.

FOOTNOTES:

[46] Vol. ix. p. 484.

[47] _Pa.s.sions of Animals_, p. 53.

[48] Vol. xii. p. 68.

[49] 'Three months' in the Journal of the Linnaean Society, but Sir John Lubbock informs me that this is a misprint.

[50] See Kirby and Spence, vol. ii. p. 591.

[51] Letter to Mr. Darwin, published in _Nature_, vol. x., p. 102.

[52] Vol. xii., pp. 25-6.

[53] _Loc. cit._

[54] Art. 'Bees,' _Encycl. Brit._

[55] Dr. Kemp, _Indications of Instinct_.

[56] _The Bee_, 1877, No. 1.

[57] Dr. Lindley Kemp, _Indications of Instinct_.

[58] Handc.o.c.k on Instinct, p. 18.

[59] _Introd. Ent._, ii, p. 465.

[60] _Origin of Species_, 'Cell-making Instinct.'

[61] _Origin of Species_, p. 225.

[62] _Mind in Animals_, pp. 252-3.

[63] For a complete account of these habits see Bingley, _Animal Biography_, vol. iii., pp. 272-5.

[64] _Mem. sur les Insectes_, tom. vi., p. 39.

[65] Vol. i., pp. 22-3 (3rd ed.).

[66] Vol. xvii., p. 373.

[67] See Brehm, _Thierleben_, ix., p. 252.

[68] An exactly similar case is recorded by Stodmann in his _Travels in Surinam_, ii., p. 286.

[69] _Nature_, ix., p. 189.

[70] See _Kirby and Spence_, vol. ii., p. 229.

CHAPTER V.