'Is it alive?' she seems to ask. 'Is it dead? Is it really my Spider?
Let us be wary!'

The hesitation does not last long: the huntress grabs her victim,
drags her backwards and places her, still high up, on a second tuft of
herbage, two or three steps away from the first. She then goes back to
the burrow and digs for a while. For the second time, I remove the
Spider and lay her at some distance, on the bare ground. This is the
moment to judge of the Wasp's memory. Two tufts of grass have served
as temporary resting-places for the game. The first, to which she
returned with such precision, the Wasp may have learnt to know by a
more or less thorough examination, by reiterated visits that escaped
my eye; but the second has certainly made but a slight impression on
her memory. She adopted it without any studied choice; she stopped
there just long enough to hoist her Spider to the top; she saw it for
the first time and saw it hurriedly, in passing. Is that rapid glance
enough to provide an exact recollection? Besides, there are now two
localities to be modelled in the insect's memory: the first shelf may
easily be confused with the second. To which will the Pompilus go?

We shall soon find out: here she comes, leaving the burrow to pay a
fresh visit to the Spider. She runs straight to the second tuft, where
she hunts about for a long time for her absent prey. She knows that it
was there, when last seen, and not elsewhere; she persists in looking
for it there and does not once think of going back to the first perch.
The first tuft of grass no longer counts; the second alone interests
her. And then the search in the neighbourhood begins again.

On finding her game on the bare spot where I myself have placed it,
the Pompilus quickly deposits the Spider on a third tuft of grass; and