26 SECRETS OF ANIMAL LIFE 



power of flying backwards in front of one's bicycle 

 for a quarter of a mile at a time; there is the 

 consummate efficiency (incalculably beneficent from 

 man's point of view) in destroying in a great variety 

 of ways large numbers of injurious insects for 

 wasps are carnivores and scavengers of big appetite, 

 as well as the honey-suckers, fruit-eaters, and jam- 

 thieves we all know them to be. 



But, tearing ourselves away from these familiar 

 wonders, we wish to direct attention to a quaint 

 piece of domestic economy which Dr. Roubaud has 

 recently discovered among African wasps. These 

 know no winter or interruption in their year, and 

 they throw fresh light on species like ours which 

 are severely punctuated by northern seasons. For 

 it is well known that of the great summer com- 

 munity of wasps only the young fertilized queens 

 survive the winter. They have sought out sheltered 

 nooks, under thatch and the like, where, fixed by 

 their jaws, and occupying a position quaintly like 

 that which they had as pupae within their cradles, 

 they lie asleep till the spring. 



Among bees and wasps there has been social 

 evolution on a primarily instinctive and secondarily 

 intelligent basis rookeries and the like being on 

 a primarily intelligent and secondarily instinctive 

 basis ; our evolution being on a vaguely instinctive, 

 primarily intelligent, and occasionally rational 

 basis. There are many solitary wasps and solitary 

 bees, and there are many grades of sociality, or 

 whatever it be called, between the solitary life and 



