AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG. 231 



the hole, at intervals scratching the dust into it like a dog with its fore 

 feet, and entering it as if to press down and consolidate the mass, flying 

 also once or twice to an adjoining fir-tree, possibly to procure resin for 

 agglutinating the whole. Having filled the burrow to a level with the 

 surrounding earth so as to conceal the entrance, it took two fir-leaves lying 

 at hand, and placed them near the orifice as if to mark the place. — Such 

 is the anecdote left on record by our illustrious countryman, of whose 

 accuracy of observation there can be no doubt. ^ Who that reads it can 

 refrain from joining in the reflection which it calls from him, " Quis hcec 

 71071 mihi miretur et stupeat 1 Quis hujusmodi opera mercc machincB possit 

 attribuere ?"^ 



I myself, when walking with a friend some months ago, observed nearly 

 similar manoeuvres performed by another hymenopterous insect which may 

 be called a spider-wasp (Pompilus), which attracted our attention as it 

 was dragging a spider to its cell. The attitude in which it carried its 

 prey, namely with its feet constantly upwards ; its singular mode of walk- 

 ing, which was backwards, except for a foot or two when it went forwards, 

 moving by jerks and making a sort of pause every few steps ; and the 

 astonishing agility with which, notwithstanding its heavy burthen, it glided 

 over or between the grass, weeds, and other numerous impediments in the 

 rough path along which it passed — together formed a spectacle which we 

 contemplated with admiration. The distance which we thus observed it 

 to traverse was not less than twenty-seven feet, and great part of its jour- 

 ney had probably been performed before we saw it. Once or twice, 

 when we first noticed it, it laid down the spider, and making a small 

 circuit returned and took it up again. But for the ensuing twenty or 

 twenty-five feet it never stopped, but proceeded in a direct line for its 

 burrow with the utmost speed. When opposite the hole, which was in a 

 sand bank by the way side, it made a sharp turn, as evidently aware of 

 being in the neighborhood of its abode, but when advanced a little further 

 laid down its burthen and went to reconnoitre. At first it chmbed up the 

 bank, but, as if discovering that this was not the direction, soon returned, 

 and after another survey perceiving the hole, took up the spider and 

 dragged it in after it. 



In the two instances above given, one dead caterpillar or spider only 

 was deposited in each hole. But an insect described by Reaumur under 

 the name of the mason- wasp {Epipone spinipes), very common in some 

 parts of England, after having excavated a burrow, with an ingenuity to 

 which on a future occasion I shall draw your attention, places along with 

 its egg as food for the future young, about twelve little green grubs without 

 feet, which it has carefully selected full grown and conveyed without 

 injuring them. You will inquire. Why this difference of procedure? 

 With regard to the choice of a number of small grubs rather than of one 

 large caterpillar, what I have said in a former letter on the subject of 



1 The Rev. Dr. Sutton of Norwich made similar observations upon the proceedings ot 

 this insect in his garden for two successive seasons. 



2 Rai. Hist. his. 254. For an interesting account of the procedures of a female of this 

 species in dragging a very large spider up the nearly perpendicular side of a sand-bank at 

 least twenty feet high, as well as of other curious facts in the economy of sand-wasps, the 

 reader is referred to the very excellent " Essay on the Indigenous Fossorial Hymenoptera,'" 

 by W. E. Shuckard, Esq. p. 77, &c. 



