Ants hatched from the egg artificially,
or birds hatched in this manner, have all this knowledge by intuition,
without the smallest communication with any of their relations. Now
observe what the solitary wasp does; she digs several holes in the sand,
in each of which she deposits an egg, though she certainly knows not (?)
that an animal is deposited in that egg, and still less that this animal
must be nourished with other animals. She collects a few green flies,
rolls them up neatly in several parcels (like Bologna sausages), and
stuffs one parcel into each hole where an egg is deposited. When the
wasp worm is hatched, it finds a store of provision ready made; and what
is most curious, the quantity allotted to each is exactly sufficient to
support it, till it attains the period of wasphood, and can provide for
itself. This instinct of the parent wasp is the more remarkable as it
does not feed upon flesh itself. Here the little creature has never seen
its parent; for by the time it is born, the parent is always eaten by
sparrows; and yet, without the slightest education, or previous
experience, it does everything that the parent did before it. Now the
objectors to the doctrine of instinct may say what they please, but young
tailors have no intuitive method of making pantaloons; a new-born mercer
cannot measure diaper; nature teaches a cook's daughter nothing about
sippets.
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