FABRE'S BOOK OF INSECTS 



Wasps and Bees during the night's rest. A particular 

 Wasp, an Ammophila with red fore-legs, is plentiful in 

 my enclosure towards the end of August, and likes to 

 sleep in one of the lavender borders. At dusk, espe- 

 cially after a stifling day when a storm is brewing, I am 

 sure to find the strange sleeper settled there. Never was 

 a more eccentric attitude chosen for a night's rest. The 

 jaws bite right into the lavender-stem. Its square shape 

 supplies a firmer hold than a round stalk would give. 

 With this one and only prop the Wasp's body juts out 

 stiflly at full length, with legs folded. It forms a right 

 angle with the stalk, so that the whole weight of the in- 

 sect rests upon the -mandibles. 



The Ammophila is enabled by its mighty jaws to sleep 

 in this way, extended in space. It takes an animal to 

 think of a thing like that, which upsets all our previous 

 ideas of rest. Should the threatening storm burst and 

 the stalk sway in the wind, the sleeper is not troubled by 

 her swinging hammock; at most, she presses her fore-legs 

 for a moment against the tossing stem. Perhaps the 

 Wasp's jaws, like the Bird's toes, possess the power of 

 gripping more tightly in proportion to the violence of the 

 wind. However that may be, there are several kinds of 

 Wasps and Bees who adopt this strange position, — grip- 

 ping a stalk with their mandibles, and sleeping with their 

 bodies outstreched and their legs folded back. This 



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