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Show 94 IIAl3lTS OF WORMS. CnAP. II. grasshoppers, which are invariably dra()'ged into the burrow by their antennre. When these were cut off close to the head, the Sphex seized the palpi ; but when these were likewise cut off, the attempt to drag its prey into the burrow was g~ven _up in despair. The Sphex had ~ot ~ntolhgence enough to seize one of the sue le.gs or the ovipositor of the grasshopper, whJCb, as M. Fabre remarks, would have served equally well. So again, if the paralysed prey with an egg attached to it b~ taken ~ut. of the cell the Sphex after entenng and find1ng the cell' empty, nevertheless closes it up in the usual elaborate manner. Bees will try to escape and go on buzzing for hours on a window, one half of which has been left open. Even a pike continued during three months to dash and bruise itself against the glass sides of an aquarium, in the vain attempt to seize minnows on the opposite side.* A cobrasnake was seen by Mr. Layard t to act much more wisely than either the pike or the Sphex ; * Mobius, 'Die l3cwcgungen dcr Thierc,' &c., 1873, p. 111. t 'Annals and Mag. of N. History,' series ii. vol. ix. 1852, 1!· 333. CnAP. II. THEIR INTELLIGENCE. 95 it had swallowed a toad lying within a hole, and could not withdraw its head ; the toad was disgorged, and began to crawl away; it was again swallowed and arrain disO'OrO'ed · u b 5 ' and now the snake had learnt by experience, for it seized the toad by one of its legs and drew it out of the hole. The instincts of even the higher animals are often followed in a senseless or purposeless manner : the weaver-bird will perseverjngly wind threads through the bars of its cage, as if building a nest: a squirrel will pat nuts on a wooden floor, as if he had just buried them in tho ground: a beaver will cut up logs of wood and drag them about, though there is no water to dam up; and so in many other cases. Mr. Romanes, who has specially studied the minds of animals, believes that we can safely infer intelligence, only when we see an individual profiting by its own experience. By this test the cobra showed some intelligence; but this would have been much plainer if on a second occasion he had drawn a toad out of a hole by its leg. The Sphex failed signally in this respect. Now if worms try to drag objects into their burrows |