Friend Bull, my Dog, is no better-endowed, despite his quality as a
candidate for humanity. In our excursions through the woods, he happens to
get caught by the paw in a wire snare set for rabbits. Like the Tachytes,
he tugs at it obstinately and only pulls the noose tighter. I have to
release him when he does not himself succeed in snapping the wire by his
hard pulling. When he tries to leave the room, if the two leaves of the
door are just ajar, he contents himself with pushing his muzzle, like a
wedge, into the too narrow aperture. He moves forward, pushing in the
direction which he wishes to take. His simple, dog-like method has one
unfailing result: the two leaves of the door, when pushed, merely shut
still closer. It would be easy for him to pull one of them towards him with
his paw, which would make the passage wider; but this would be a movement
backward, contrary to his natural impulse; and so he does not think of it.
Yet another creature that does not reason.

The Tachytes, who stubbornly persists in tugging at her limed Mantis and
refuses to acknowledge any other method of wresting her from the Silene's
snare, shows us the Wasp in an unflattering light. What a very poor
intellect! The insect becomes only the more wonderful, therefore, when we
consider its supreme talent as an anatomist. Many a time I have insisted
upon the incomprehensible wisdom of instinct; I do so again at the risk of
repeating myself. An idea is like a nail: it is not to be driven in save by
repeated blows. By hitting it again and again, I hope to make it enter the
most rebellious brains. This time I shall attack the problem from the other
end, that is, I shall first allow human knowledge to have its say and shall
then interrogate the insect's knowledge.

The outward structure of the Praying Mantis would of itself be enough to
teach us the arrangement of the nerve-centres which the Tachytes has to
injure in order to paralyse its victim, which is destined to be devoured