106 NATURAL HISTORY. [CH. VI. 



If the queen-bee be compared with the mother- 

 wasp, the latter will gain by the contrast. "If 

 glory be known to insects," says Reaumur, — "if 

 solid glory be measured among them, as among us, 

 by the difficulties surmounted, the female wasp is a 

 heroine to whom the queen-bee is in no way com- 

 parable. When the latter leaves her hive to seek a 

 new sovereignty, she is accompanied by many thou- 

 sand workers, industrious, laborious, and ready to 

 execute all that is necessary for the welfare of the 

 new establishment ; while the female wasp, alone 

 and single-handed, lays the foundations of her new 

 republic. It is she who has to seek or make a hole, 

 when she cannot find one ready-made to her pur- 

 pose, to build in it cells to receive the eggs, and to 

 nourish the young after they have been evolved." 



It might perhaps be thought natural that several 

 females, born in the same hive, should assist each 

 other in laying the foundations of the new city. 

 But for some unknown reasons this consorting of 

 females is alien to the genius of these insects ; and 

 in the present case nothing would be gained by it. 

 Each female is under the necessity of providing for 

 her own eggs ; hence she could not help her neigh- 

 bour. The neuters all perish when the first cold 

 weather sets in; nay, all the young, which have 

 not arrived at maturity, are, on the approach of 

 winter, dragged from their cells and massacred, to 

 prevent perhaps a more cruel and protracted death 

 by famine or frost. 



The ferocity of the wasp is otherwise rarely ex- 

 ercised on its own kind; the nest never presents 

 those terrible combats and massacres which take 

 place in the hive. Occasionally the neuters fight 

 with each other; or a neuter sometimes fights with 

 a male ; but, accordkig to Reaumur, the result is 

 rarely fatal. — Even towards man, this tribe of in- 

 sects is peaceably disposed. The celebrated natu- 

 ralist just mentioned states* that they will not 



