I30 INSECT LIFE ix 



fight cannot last long, despite the sting of the victim. 

 Upon the very flower where the capture was made, 

 or oftener on some twig of a neighbouring shrub, the 

 hornet prepares its dish. First of all the bag of the 

 bee is torn open, and the honey lapped up. The 

 prize is thus twofold — that of a drop of honey, and 

 the bee itself for the larvae to feast on. Sometimes 

 the wings are detached, as well as the abdomen, but 

 generally the hornet is contented with making a 

 shapeless mass of the bee which is carried off whole. 

 It is at the nest that the parts valueless for food are 

 rejected, especially the wings. Or the paste may be 

 prepared on the spot, the bee being crushed at once 

 between the hornet's mandibles, after wings, feet, 

 and sometimes the abdomen are cut off. 



Here, then, in all its details is the fact observed 

 by Darwin. A wasp, Vespa vulgaris, seizes Eristalis 

 tenax ; with her mandibles she cuts off head, wings, 

 and abdomen of the victim, keeping only the thorax, 

 with which she flies away. But we need no breath 

 of air to explain why they were cut off; the scene 

 takes place in perfect shelter, in the grass. The 

 captor rejects such parts as are useless for the larvae, 

 and that is all. 



In short, a wasp is certainly the heroine of 

 Darwin's story. What, then, becomes of that 

 reasoning which made the creature, in order better 

 to contend with the wind, deprive its prey of 

 abdomen, head, and wings, leaving only a thorax ? 

 It becomes a very simple fact, whence flow none of 

 the great consequences that were drawn from it, — the 

 very trivial fact that a wasp began at once to cut 

 up her prey, and only considered the trunk worthy 



