358 AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG. 



siting them, but attend upon their young, when exchided, 

 -with an affectionate assiduity equal to any thing exhibited 

 amongst the larger animals, and in the highest degree 

 interesting. Of this description are some solitary insects, 

 as several species of the Linnean genus Sphex, earwigs, 

 field-bugs, and spiders: and those insects which live in 

 societies, namely, ants, bees, wasps, and termites: the 

 most striking traits of whose history in these respects I 

 shall endeavour to lay before you. 



You have seen that the greater number of the Sphecina 

 after depositing their eggs in cells stored with a supply 

 of food, take no further care of them. Some, however, 

 adopt a different procedure. One of these, called by 

 Bonnet the Maso7i->wasp, but different from Reaumur's, 

 not only incloses a living caterpillar along with its egg 

 in the cell, which it carefully closes, but at the expiration 

 of a few days, when the young grub has appeared and 

 has consumed its provision, re-opens the nest, incloses a 

 second caterpillar, and again shuts the mouth : and this 

 operation it repeats until the young one has attained its 

 full growth*. A similar mode, according to Rolander, 

 is followed by Ammophila vulgaris as well as by the 

 yellowish wasp of Pennsylvania, described by Bartram 

 in the Philosophical Transactio7is^^ and by another re- 

 lated to Melli7ius a7-vensis, observed by Duhamel *= ; both 

 of which, however, instead of caterpillars, supply their 

 larvai with a periodical provision of living flies. 



What a crowd of interesting reflections are these most 

 singular facts calculated to excite ! With what foresight 

 must the parent insect be endowed, thus to be av/are at 



* Bonnet, ix. 3n8. ^ liii. 37. Pelopccus splrlfcx? 



• Reauni. vi. )lij9. 



