THE EUMENES 203 



unfavorable to artistic effort; they stab a prey with 

 their sting; they pillage and plunder. They are pre- 

 datory Hymenoptera, victualing their grubs with cater- 

 pillars. It will be interesting to compare their habits 

 with those of the operator on the Gray Worm.^ Though 

 the quarry — caterpillars in either case — remain the 

 same, perhaps instinct, which is liable to vary with the 

 species, has fresh glimpses in store for us. Besides, the 

 edifice built by the Eumenes in itself deserves inspection. 

 The Hunting- Wasps whose story we have described 

 in former volumes are wonderfully well versed in the 

 art of wielding the lancet; they astound us with their 

 surgical methods, which they seem to have learnt from 

 some physiologist who allows nothing to escape him; 

 but those skilful slayers have no merit as builders of 

 dwelling-houses. What is their home, in point of fact? 

 An underground passage, with a cell at the end of it; 

 a gallery, an excavation, a shapeless cave. It is miner's 

 work, navvy's work : vigorous sometimes, artistic never. 

 They use the pick-ax for loosening, the crowbar for 

 shifting, the rake for extracting the materials, but never 

 the trowel for laying. Now in the Eumenes we see real 

 masons, who build their houses bit by bit with stone and 

 mortar and run them up in the open, either on the firm 

 rock or on the shaky support of a bough. Hunting 

 alternates with architecture; the insect is a Nimrod or a 

 Vitruvius - by turns. 



^ Ammophila hirsuta, who hunts the Gray Worm, the caterpillar 

 of Noctua segetum, the Dart or Turnip Moth. — Translatoi-'s Note. 



2 Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, the Roman architect and engineer. — 

 Translator's Note. 



