62 ELEMENTARY STUDIES IN INSECT LIFE 



CHAPTER IV 



SOLITARY LIFE 



SOME insects lead a social life ; other insects are soli- 

 tary in their habits. We find within the insect tribe 

 many hermits, with almost miraculous foresight, expend- 

 ing their lives and energies constructing abodes for the 

 protection. of their young as well as storehouses for food 

 to nourish their young. Unattended, the young grow 

 from infancy to maturity within these little darkened 

 homes, prepared and provisioned by a parent who in 

 most cases has gone before the offspring mature. 



The solitary wasps are the most interesting forms of 

 this class. These insects are of two sexes. It is the 

 duty of the female to make a nest for each one of her 

 young, and to see that nourishment is furnished it suffi- 

 cient for its sustenance until maturity. The males are 

 irresponsible creatures, assuming little if any direction 

 in family affairs. The adult wasp lives upon fruit or 

 nectar ; the young are reared upon animal food. Each 

 species is particular as to the kind of food selected, so 

 that we find certain species always provisioning their 

 nests with flies, others with spiders, others with cater- 

 pillars, and yet others with grasshoppers, and so on. 

 Generation after generation and year after year the same 

 species are reared upon the very same class of food, pro- 

 cured in like manner by the parent guided by the force 

 we are wont to call instinct. 



